Kirsten Haydon investigates the potential of gold and silversmithing to communicate human experience and connections with the environment. Kirsten completed a PhD in 2009 and has been teaching at the School of Fine Art, RMIT University in Melbourne since 2002. Kirsten travelled to Antarctica as a New Zealand Antarctic Arts Fellow in 2004.
Her art practice explores connections and observations of the environment through concepts of historic photography and micromosaics. Site and archival studies inform works which aim to engage the act of remembering and the fragile futures of ice by assembling and drawing on metal and enamel surfaces. Kirsten was the recipient of the Lynne Kosky Jewellery Award at the Victorian Craft Awards in 2017 and has presented significant installations at Craft Victoria, In the Drawer, 2004 and Ice Storeroom, 2014.
Within the gallery environment, Haydon has pushed her methods of display in order to generate different narratives between objects and visitors...to invite viewers to explore rather than simply look.
/ Claire Regnault, Senior Curator New Zealand Histories and Cultures Te Papa