Exhibition
Three Bean Mix brings together three jeweller/makers, Sue Buchanan, Mary Hackett, and Leonie Westbrook who have chosen a discarded container, the ‘tin can’, realising its potential as material for creative thought and expression. All three makers have manipulated and altered the cans to form cultural objects that hint at their lament of the single use of a precious resource. What can be done with the can that contained the breakfast baked beans, the vegetables that were added to the salad, or the coconut cream emptied into the curry, apart from throwing it into the recycling bin?
Through a make-do or ‘waste not want not’ frame of mind, Three Bean Mix aims to bring attention and appreciation to the discarded waste product of convenient supermarket food produced en masse. The overlooked ‘tin can’ as a source of material for making and to provoke discussion is an ongoing project, a three-way conversation that began in 2023, resulting in the first exhibition at Curate Space for Radiant Pavillon in 2024, and now at Parker Gallery for Nelson Jewellery Week in 2025.
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Genre: Exhibition
Artist / Tutor: Susan Buchanan, Mary Hackett, Leonie WestbrookDate: 10/04/2025, 11/04/2025, 12/04/2025, 14/04/2025, 15/04/2025, 16/04/2025
Price: FREE
Venue: Parker Gallery
Susan Buchanan, Mary Hackett, Leonie Westbrook
The three beans
Subverting the alienation of anonymous, hands-off production through ‘crafting the industrial’ has been an ongoing theme in Susan Buchanan’s work and her PhD project, Urban Jewels, further explores how we engage with the modern urban environment. Sue has exhibited locally and internationally, including in collaboration with Eli Giannini as Superpleased. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boonwurrung lands.
Mary Hackett reclaims the personal from super-industrialised processes. Her jewellery and objects are a protest against the mass-production of traditional social symbolism. Mary completed a PhD in Fine Art at RMIT focused on historical and material agencies of blacksmithing and sculpture, exploring matter interactions in a blacksmithing quench. Based in Naarm/Melbourne, Mary has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in public and private collections.
Leonie Westbrook is a craft-based artist and member of artist collective Central Studios on Kaurna land. With a resourceful and inventive approach, the discarded and left over are reimagined using traditional skills and processes. Her work is in the Art Gallery of South Australia collection, and her works have been twice acquired by Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery from Contemporary Wearables.
