Emily Floyd: The Dawn

(Taken from a review written for Floyd's exhibition 'The Dawn' at NGV Australia in 2015, as part of the La Trobe University Art Now program.)

Emily Floyd addresses Art Now @ NGV students, Feb 2015.

Countless South-East Melbourne commuters may not realise it but the 13 metre high black bird they pass on their drive home along the EastLink tollway is an Emily Floyd creation, the same artist they can enjoy up close and personal at NGV Australia. However once they do realise, it should come as no surprise that the current exhibition is an equally playful cut, shuffle and paste of Melbourne spaces and heritage. Public Art Strategy, commissioned by EastLink in 2008 clearly references iconic Melbourne public artworks such as the “Yellow Peril” Vault by RobRobertson-Swan and the cheese-stick MelbourneGateway by DCM. Floyd’s smaller scale works in the survey exhibition TheDawn are a similar tribute to the vibrant colour and vitality that is Melbourne.

In 2008 Melbourne was recognised as one of seven UNESCOCities of Literature and its literary influence shows in much of Floyd’s work. Huge circular bookshelves welcome the visitor into the vestibule of the IanPotter centre and literally encases them within a book collection (bliss!). Massive installations of thousands of laser cut wooden lettering lie scattered across the floor. Giant prints of socialist and communist literature from the collection of late Melbourne activist and child care advocate Ruth Crow entreat the viewer to “solve your personal problems personally.” Words, literature and education are as much a part of these displays as the pieces themselves. Every item breathes “learn”.

'Women of the West' Emily Floyd 2015 (Image NMJoyce) 

Floyd is a Melbourne woman born and bred and this is an exhibition with a distinctly Melbourne flavour - right down to the “Melbourne Strategy Plan” and “Women of the West” (pictured) prints towering above small children creating their very own personal manifestos in the Small Press installation. Melbourne has a proud history of social activism and so the intertextuality between that history and Floyd’s tribute reaches out from every boldly coloured work.

Placing the “make-your-own-manifesto” in a room filled with Russian Constructivism designs of communist literature that could easily lose someone their job if caught in possession of it, is a sweet irony to be savoured. Melbourne’s activist history, even seen through nostalgia-coloured glasses, is tainted with harsh reality. In her discussion with La Trobe University Art Now students in 2015 (pictured), Floyd said that the nostalgia of the works reminds her of the “failures and not success” of collectivism. Such a statement would be sad if not for the fact that she clearly has hope that eventually, one day, it will all work out.

Her faith in a continued collective political approach is evident in the arrangement of her art – flexible, moveable and open to interpretation. Keep mixing up the equation until a solution is solved. The method may seem playful and childish, but the matters being addressed are certainly serious and grown-up.