SUGAR

“What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice, and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of”
SUGAR brings together for the first time the work of two all-female art collectives: Cork based Bunny Collective and Areole, based in Tampere, Finland. This partnership reflects the overarching themes of the exhibition: multiplicity, community and of investigating differences and similarities in women’s lives.
SUGAR takes as its point of departure the socially-inscribed connection between women and sweetness, and how ‘sugar’ as a metaphor has come to stand for femininity as a whole.
From this, SUGAR presents a dynamic exploration of femininity, one that stresses the multiple, contradictory and connective possibilities of female identity rooted in the diversity and range of perspectives offered by the exhibiting artists instead. Thus, sugar, as a term, takes on new significance, one anchored in the compound properties of the chemical substance itself.
Working predominantly in video and photography, the artists will explore different aspects of women’s identity including growing up, negotiations of memory and shame, body image, female relationships, sexuality, gender construction and fluidity, subjectivity and female stereotypes.
Therefore, SUGAR will operate as a forum in which to articulate the marked contrasts, yet powerful bonds between each of the artists own experiences of being and becoming a woman. Bunny Collective is an all-female art collective originally formed at the Crawford College of Art and Design by Samantha Conlon. Since its formation in September 2013, Bunny Collective has expanded to include a number of artists based in the UK and Asia, and has attracted international interest from Dazed and Confused and The Le Sigh among others. Collectively, the group’s work explores female experience and identity at a time of technological-advance, investigating how women exist both on- and off-line. Bunny Collective has exhibited at CCAD and at Soma Contemporary Gallery in Waterford.
Formed in 2012, Areole is an art collective based at the University of Applied Sciences, Tampere, Finland. Working in video mostly, the members explore concepts relating to body image; gender roles, personal memories and identity. In their own words: ‘There are five of us but we are not Spice Girls. Fearlessness condenses in our way of working. Our favorite things are: glitter, laughing, lo-tech, good box lunches, nasty stuff, headlamps, structures and practical shoes’.
For further information: Contact info@bunnycollective.com / collective.areole@gmail.combunnycollective.com/ collectiveareole.tumblr.com Follow on twitter: twitter.com/BunnyCollective; on Facebook: facebook.com/thebunnycollective