27 Sep Damien Shen | STILL: National Still Life Award 2017
Damien Shen has been announced as a finalist in the STILL: National Still Life Award 2017 for his new series of work Still life after Penn.
STILL: National Still Life Award is run by the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery. The winner will be announced 25 November 2017.
Still life after Penn explores histories of disrespecting and degrading human remains, including the stealing of remains from graves and hospital morgues by anthropologists and physicians.
‘Still life after Penn is a complex interrogation of many things. It seeks to begin dialogues about what is right and what is wrong, about the living and the dead, and the spaces in between, while simultaneously interrogating the practices of museums historically and in the here and now… the remains of Shen’s ancestors still sit in boxes within the collection stores of museums here in Australia and abroad, waiting to be returned to their homelands’
– Glen Isenger-Pilkington, 2017