Samantha Cheng

Rumpus (with Jordan Davey-Emms & Isabella Dampney)
Chez Derriere, 30 September - 14 October 2023
Curated by Felixe Laing

Rumpus presents three new commissions from Jordan Davey-Emms, Isabella Dampney and Samantha Cheng developed through their Play workshops.

Davey-Emms led the alter-ego portrait workshop Headshot kitchen, Dampney invited participants to play the board game CA$HFLOW and Cheng asked people to make a temporary exhibition on a train from Newmarket to Mt Albert in Passengers.

The Play workshops invited the artists to engage audiences in playful artmaking, creating collaborative or performative environments for artistic research. In these workshops play was used as a tool to enable artists and participants the freedom to try new things without the same pressure or expectations for resolved outcomes. This generated a series of workshops full of surprises, laughter, encouragement and new perspectives.

In Rumpus each artist interprets and uses play in different ways as characterised in their play workshops; Davey-Emms through costuming and stage dressing, Dampney engages gameplay and storytelling and Cheng with performance highlighting the humour and failures of everyday life.

Rumpus concludes a collaborative inquiry into what is playful practice, showcasing three exciting, bold and comical commissions.

*Images by Sam Hartnett