Deborah Kelly’s CREATION is a collaboration between artists and communities to develop an art work that offers ways to gather and commune – a counterpoint to the natural disasters, plagues and leadership failures of our era.

A work drawn from politics, evidence, mysticism and collectivity, CREATION is developed through a multi-venue series of cross-disciplinary projects, public brainstorms and participatory performances.

Central to CREATION is The Liturgy of the Saprophyte, by artist SJ Norman. The liturgy grounds the project in a Gothic First Nations sensibility. The project encourages collective creativity and cooperative decision-making, centring marginalised voices in all its aspects and making workshops accessible and enjoyable practices of communal commitment to shared labours and public pleasures.

Published by Griffith University Art Museum, this publication documents and extends the scope and themes of CREATION, with newly commissioned academic, theological, environmental and creative reflections on the project, as well as documentation of CREATION’s various iterations.

The Book of Creation, 2022
Publisher: Griffith University Art Museum
Contributors: Evelyn Araluen, Alia Ardon, Virginia Barratt, Beloved Collective, Karen Crawley, Brian Fuata, Angela Goddard, Angela Goh, Amrita Hepi, Heather Grace Jones, Sarah Joseph, Alex Kelly, Deborah Kelly, Rachel Kent, Jeff Khan, Tania Leimbach, Lex Lindsay, SJ Norman, Jinghua Qian, Juundaal Strang-Yettica, Bhikkhu Sujato, Sēini Taumoepeau, Ellen Van Neerven, Alison Williams
Co-Editors: Angela Goddard & Carrie McCarthy
205mm (H) x 155mm
159pp; hardcover

ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Deborah Kelly is a Melbourne-born, Sydney-based artist whose works have been exhibited in solo and group shows through Australia and internationally. Deborah Kelly’s practice encompasses collage, installation, event and performance. Her projects are often collaborative and concerned with lineages of representation, politics and history in public exchange. Some of Kelly’s projects originate as political practices and others are picked up by cultural institutions. Beware of the God (2005), commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, appeared across Sydney as postcards, videos and projections onto clouds. No Human Being Is Illegal (2014–19), for the Biennale of Sydney, unfolded through hundreds of collages and is now in the collection of the Wellcome Trust in London.
Read more about CREATION here.