Compost
Hany Armanious, Stephen Bram, Stephen Bush, Helen Fuller, Leah King-Smith, Maria Kozic, Geoff Lowe, Anna Platten, Tony Schwensen, Christopher Snee, Suzanne Treister, Regina Walter, Guan Wei, Stephen Wigg, Constance Zikos.
Compost was an exhibition staged in private homes alongside Artist Week program for the 1996 Adelaide Festival. It was the first major exhibition to explore the theme of ‘the everyday’, in Australia.
A complex, risky and highly innovative project. Artist Week lectures were held in the local park, RSL Hall and performances took place in a second hand store.
Top image: Paintings by Helen Fuller
Above: Paintings by Stephen Bram
Left: 100 jokes on paper by Mutlu Cerkez
The houses that hosted the exhibition were in the Adelaide suburb of Norwood. Visitors to the exhibition were provided a map and walked from home to home.
Painting in the hallway by Suzanne Treister
Painting by Howard Arkley is shown in a kitchen
Maria Kozic’s dangerous bitches standing in the corner.
As is hinted at in this image, odd and beguiling juxtapositions arose when siting artworks in a domestic setting.
Here, Christopher Snee’s elephants are shown alongside a collection of dolls in the shed of one of the Norwood homes.
Artist Week-Compost was a highly contentious project given it was held in a suburban setting. The exhibition venues were private homes and the talks and seminars were held in an RSL Hall and a public park. Some performances were also held in the local second hand store. The event was held in March usually a seeing very hot in Adelaide. Some of Adelaide’s art cognoscenti thought that placing art and art talk ‘out in the suburbs’ diminished Artist’s’ Week standing, and that a venue at the Festival Centre or the University of Adelaide was more appropriate. (They also would not have to walk far for coffee and wine…) Artist Week was also always somewhat political as it’s curatorship was sought after as a professional opportunity. I was also up to that time been the art critic for the morning daily The Advertiser, which saw even more knives out than normal for the Artist Week curator. The irony for me, was that when my colleague John Barbour and I approached the Adelaide Festival Director Barrie Kosky seeking to stage an exhibition in private homes to be called ‘Compost’, he would only agree on the basis that I took on Artist Week as well - without any additional financial resources! This meant not only stretched resources, but that it was logical to stage the lectures in the same suburb as the exhibition. Secretly, I enjoyed the art snobs complaining that it was hot in the park and in the RSL Hall. Welcome to the world of the masses! As an exhibition ‘Compost’ was groundbreaking and I remain very proud of it. Postscript 2026