Alrey Batol & Sarah Poulgrain
Alrey Batol’s multidisciplinary practice explores the re‑contextualisation of material culture, grounded in appropriate technology, commons‑thinking, and a DIY ethos. His work spans backyard ceramics, industrial design, paper‑making, multimedia, workshops, and lectures, with a strong emphasis on integrity, accountability, and the ethical sharing of knowledge across both symbolic and material realms. Sarah Poulgrain’s practice focuses on self‑sustainability, skill‑exchange, and artist‑led pedagogy. She is currently building a pontoon houseboat that will function as both her home and an experimental art space, engaging boat‑builders, lead‑light‑makers, contemporary artists, ecologists, and houseboat communities. The project aims to create a climate‑ and gentrification‑resilient ARI for Meanjin, decoupling artistic sustainability from volatile rental markets. Her broader practice involves learning new skills through DIY methodologies, documenting each process, and re‑teaching it to others as a way to disrupt power dynamics and cultivate non‑hierarchical, trust‑based forms of knowledge sharing.
Alrey and Sarah are interested in learning new skills through a DIY methodology that balances the tension between anthropocentricism and biocentrism. The are making a DIY cement-making station for Cementa26 – a glass/rubble crushing station, a retort kiln, an aggregate cutting area & some backyard infrastructure made from DIY concrete.
