Portrait: Ross Coulter and Meredith Turnbull at the All Together exhibition in the children's gallery at SAM.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Artists Meredith Turnbull and Ross Coulter have 40 years of combined experience making and exhibiting art.
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The award-winning duo from St Kilda are holding an interactive children’s exhibition titled All Together at the Shepparton Art Museum until April 2023.
The exhibition, which opened on November 12, includes an interactive space for families and friends to take selfies in front of a quilt created by Ms Turnbull.
The exhibition also features colouring-in activities and photography classes.
Mr Coulter said it was an opportunity to embrace the awkward family photo and show how it could bring a city such as Shepparton together.
Strike a pose: Ross Coulter takes what he calls a daggy selfie.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
“So you think about the awkward family photo. It says something more about the dynamic of the family and the idea of the family portrait being as a unified singular image the kind of what represents your family,” he said.
Mr Coulter said he and Ms Turnbull had created a space to reflect the diversity of Shepparton.
“We want to make it conducive to kids to come in and activate the space to feel comfortable and at home in this environment,” he said.
“The paintings on the walls replicate the quilt, and kind of putting together different colours and fabrics, patterns and just trying to enliven the whole room to make it seem more approachable.”
Ms Turnbull said they had worked with SAM to activate the space, which would inspire children to make their own art.
Unity: The All Together exhibition will run until Sunday, April 30.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
“We want kids to have authorship over that and feel like they can direct and choreograph their group or their family and make a really fun photo,” Ms Turnbull said.
Ms Turnbull said making the quilt was an opportunity to bond with her daughter Roma, who will be part of the photography shoot in January.
The exhibition will also provide a chance for people to create new memories, with some locals having lost photos in the floods.
“We want to provide access to this exhibition because for different reasons in different circumstances, people might not have a lot of family or they might not have access to certain archives about their family,” Mr Coulter said.
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