Emily Floyd: The Dawn

Emily Floyd: The Dawn is a well-rounded survey of the artist’s extensive and varied oeuvre, which includes works on paper, installation and sculpture.

The title of this exhi­bi­tion comes from fem­i­nist news­pa­per The Dawn: A Jour­nal for Aus­tralian Women, writ­ten by suf­fragette and busi­ness­woman Louisa Law­son, in 1888. Floyd’s appre­ci­a­tion of this his­tor­i­cal, fem­i­nist plat­form is com­bined with her inter­est in Rudolf Steiner’s alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion the­o­ries and con­tex­tu­alised in a con­tem­po­rary space. Her text-based sculp­tures stim­u­late dis­cus­sion about social issues such as edu­ca­tion, art, play and social activism. The Dawn looks at the past 15 years of Floyd’s artis­tic career, in par­tiu­clar works com­mis­sioned by the NGV for the NGV­ Kids 2014/2015 Summer program.