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.
Inspired by the industrial and community–driven history of Kandos, and experimenting with circular economies, Cementing is an exploration into “appropriate technology”. Appropriate technologies are small scale, affordable, energy efficient, and designed to match the economic, cultural and environmental needs of a local community. The artists have made a DIY cement-making station fitted with retort kiln, glass crusher, and an aggregate cutting area. Cement mix is made by firing recycled oyster shells and wood ash while aggregates are made by crushing recycled glass, ceramics and construction waste. In Cementing, the threats posed by climate change and a collapse of global economies allow the artists to reimagine our everyday material needs as an opportunity for collectivist art making.
