Olivia Bowman graduated from the Tasmanian School of the Creative Arts in 2014. Her diverse art practice encompasses photography, printmaking, jewellery and paper sculpture. She is most interested in transforming and rethinking objects, spaces and ideas that we often take for granted.
Maps are culturally and historically significant documents that codify and measure our environment. We use them to understand and control our surroundings and our place on them, be it our property boundaries, the route of a bush walk, or directions around an unfamiliar city. They are contained, two-dimensional representations of uncontrollable, three-dimensional spaces.
Modular origami is an art form that uses precise mathematics to create identical segments that can be locked together in repeating patterns. The artist uses this technique to transform maps of Tasmania into regular, three-dimensional objects, but makes them completely irrelevant and impossible to use for their original purpose. They are recognisable, beautiful, and useless.
