Make opens with a beautiful afternoon of poetry and art lovers

Make artists Sara Phemister, Nicole Cosgrove, Stephanie Corkhill Hyles, Sally Rasmussen, and Kasey Robinson at the opening of the show at Tyger Gallery.

What an incredible afternoon! The absolute stars of Yass and the region came to Tyger on Saturday 18 November to celebrate the opening of our new show, Make.

Around 80 people turned up for the opening celebrations, including Make artists Stephanie Corkhill Hyles, Sara Phemister, Nicole Cosgrove, Kasey Robinson, and Sally Rasmussen. Sara Phemister spoke at the opening on behalf of all six artists, including Ning Clark who was not able to be at the opening.

The show was officially opened by Harvey Walsh - co-founder of the brilliant Yazzbar in Yass. Harvey opened the show with a poem that he had composed for the occasion - you can read that below.

We are so grateful to all the art lovers who joined us for the opening of this special show, to the artists who gave up their time to come and talk about their work with people, and to Harvey for such a warm and generous opening.

Make runs at Tyger until 3 December, and all available works are online.

Harvey’s poem for the opening of Make

Come all ye faithless
in this age of fraught religion
gather round the remaining source of truth: ourselves; our loves; our music; our song; our art.
We are what we make of each other,
not what we take from each other.

We are an installation of our own making.

We make ourselves from the tools and materials at hand.
We make our streets our towns
out of bones, history and land
through our words, our music our art
our conversations in the street
where we meet
where our hearts collide, collude
and where we reinvent and reveal ourselves
in each others faces
and exhibit all of it, all of our joy and learning and yearning
in art, exhibited
in a mirror of contemplation
here in Tyger Gallery
by the makers themselves,
by artists who re-present all of us, to us.

So, here we now stand,
peering at walls, at each other,
moving through rooms disjointedly, smoothly
as though we are looking for the installation we would become.

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
peering out from the Soldiers Memorial Hall.

Just a little gallery installed
in a street in a town -
in a street in a town
where we belong.

Harvey Walsh
November 2023