Megan MacKenzie
Kelvin Grove
About the artist
Megan is a jewellery artist who fossicks for the remnants of car crashes, and turns them into jewelry. As she lives near a major road in inner city Brisbane, she never lacks for source material. Megan aims to highlight the social and environmental implications of her core material, via transformation into "valued" objects. Megan works in the built environment sector. She has shown her work at Autor International Contemporary Jewellery Fair in Bucharest (2017), was a finalist in Contemporary Wearable 2015 Award Exhibition, and won the wearables category of the Hornsby Regional Art Returned to Glory Award (2014).
Megan is a jewellery artist who fossicks for the remnants of car crashes, and turns them into jewelry. As she lives near a major road in inner city Brisbane, she never lacks for source material. Megan aims to highlight the social and environmental implications of her core material, via transformation into "valued" objects. Megan works in the built environment sector. She has shown her work at Autor International Contemporary Jewellery Fair in Bucharest (2017), was a finalist in Contemporary Wearable 2015 Award Exhibition, and won the wearables category of the Hornsby Regional Art Returned to Glory Award (2014).
Kelvin Grove
My works feature found broken car materials left over in the aftermath of car collisions on Kelvin Grove Road, a six-lane main road 100m from my home in central Brisbane, Queensland. They highlight the dominance of the car upon Brisbane’s environment, and the implications of this unyielding car culture. Brisbane's history and landscape is dominated by the car, having expanded and developed alongside the ubiquity of the automobile in the early to mid-twentieth century. Yet the ubiquity and familiarity of the car hides its risks: road accidents, fatalities and poor health are the human costs of the car; climate change is the global cost. Despite cars being a major killer, Brisbanites are reluctant to get out of their cars. I seek to highlight the overlooked risks of cars in my work, through the embodiment of impact via breakage
My works feature found broken car materials left over in the aftermath of car collisions on Kelvin Grove Road, a six-lane main road 100m from my home in central Brisbane, Queensland. They highlight the dominance of the car upon Brisbane’s environment, and the implications of this unyielding car culture. Brisbane's history and landscape is dominated by the car, having expanded and developed alongside the ubiquity of the automobile in the early to mid-twentieth century. Yet the ubiquity and familiarity of the car hides its risks: road accidents, fatalities and poor health are the human costs of the car; climate change is the global cost. Despite cars being a major killer, Brisbanites are reluctant to get out of their cars. I seek to highlight the overlooked risks of cars in my work, through the embodiment of impact via breakage
Image by Caroline Arlett Photography