5. Louisa Dawson

Temporary Displacement, 2005
Louisa Dawson works primarily in the discipline of sculpture and installation and has recently started to make collaborative video works.

She completed a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW. During her MFA she was a guest student at the Academy of Art Dresden (HfBK), Germany in 2004. She received a travel grant from the Ian Potter Cultural Foundation to study in Germany. In 2007, Dawson received an Australia Council grant to work at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. Here she researched the space between architectural structures and domestic objects.

Dawson’s’ work examines the everyday, through our daily rituals and the objects we use. She is concerned with social inequalities of travel and mobility, especially with regards to the homeless and other marginalised communities. In her work, Dawson select mundane objects, such as rubbish skips, suitcases, parking meters, caravans and ladders. In re-contextualizing these utilitarian and domestic objects she has questioned the pragmatic nature of their conventional use and cultural purpose, and set new precedence’s for the functionality of seemingly absurd and dysfunctional objects.

A number of her sculptures have been selected for awards. These include the 2007, 2005 and 2004 Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award in Melbourne, where she received the 2004 Peoples Choice Award and the 2005 Emerging Art Award. Other exhibitions include Sculpture by the Sea (2006, 2005 & 2001) and the 2001 Helen Lempriere Travelling Arts Scholarship exhibition, at Artspace in Sydney.