We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Claire Healy / Australia b.1971 / Sean Cordeiro / Australia b.1974 / Future Remnant 2011 / Resin, steel, plywood, laminated MDF, plastic cable / 285 x 180 x 485cm (irreg.) / Purchased 2013 with funds from the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro
Claire Healy and Sean CordeiroFuture Remnant 2011
Not Currently on Display
In Future Remnant, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro transform everyday materials into an extraordinary, large-scale sculpture. In a deliberately absurd juxtaposition, a large dinosaur skeleton rests on common IKEA storage furniture — the makeshift kind of products often seen on the street before a city council rubbish collection day.
The artists are interested in pre-fabricated structures and the way these express society’s fascination with homewares and other material goods, particularly those that become clutter and are of little worth. The dinosaur is symbolic of a major extinction, as well as connoting an inability to change paths or look to the future. Despite looking comical, the work acts as a warning, asking us where our desire for wealth, status and material goods will lead.
Interrogating ideas of home, aspiration, mobility and the acquisition of material goods, their work is characterised by a playful reinvention of prefabricated structures and the assemblage of everyday objects into extraordinary sculptures and installations.
Discussion Questions
1. List the recognisable elements that have been used to construct this installation.
2. Think about all the possessions you have amassed in your life so far. What types of packaging did they come in?
3. What contradictions emerge when you closely examine this assemblage?
Activities
Create a model of stacked everyday objects you own. What form do the objects make? Provide approximate measurements to communicate the height and width of your form.