Their destiny is ruined

Kah Bee Chow | Campbell Patterson

Curated by Julia Lomas | Leah MulgrewTheir destiny was ruined explores the televisual artifact as a narrative fragment. The works by New Zealand artists Kah Bee Chow and Campbell Patterson create fictional objects that reference the decor of popular television serials. Following a collaborative project at Dog Park Art Project Space in Christchurch, New Zealand that focused on the spatial properties of television scenery, this exhibition will extend this interest in the materiality of televisual worlds. Chow and Patterson have produced a series of works that refer to the idea of the prop, the objects that decorate and lend authenticity to TV scenery. Props are familiar items that are both real and fake, fleshing out scripted realities but unavoidably reflecting an image of their own time. The works for this exhibition are documents, remnants, and fragments of storylines and soapy narrative arcs – the ruins of the fictional worlds we regularly inhabit.