Artist in Residency: Grief is a Collage at the Imaginarium
Rebekah Lambert is creating collages about life before and after grief and inviting others to make them alongside her.
For this week, she embodies Grief. She is present in the room each day, holding the space between Before and After, and helping people find their way through it using art, collage, and shared stories.
Grief is a special kind of pain. It shows up as death, loss, redundancy, the end of a relationship, a decline or change in health, ageing, the loss of identity, and the backspace bar we can never find to return to the life we knew before Grief visited.
As we grieve, we forget: Grief is love with nowhere left to go.
The path through grief is not one defining moment. There is no single point where it finally ends. Grief travels with us through small, everyday fragments — in sight, sound, smell, and memory.
This exhibition reflects that.
Grief is a Collage is a series of pre-made and community-made collages built from the same small things grief is made of. It investigates the way Grief spills into our lives, removing certainty, and splitting us into Life Before Grief and Life After Grief and the blurry middle between. This is about experiencing those feelings in a collage of art, writing and sound, where you’re invited to bring your own experience of Grief, literally and otherwise, and add it to what’s growing on the walls. Together, we’re making our way through Grief. With Grief taking tea in the corner, watching it all unfold.
How you can take part
- Contribute your thoughts on grief in this short survey
- Come and add your thoughts (words, art) on grief in person at the Imaginarium
- Take tea with Grief and/or meet the Crying Contralto
See Grief is a Collage for yourself
Monday 9am – 2pm
Setup, initial installation, submissions welcome.
Tuesday
9am – 1pm
See the artist at work. Submissions welcome, drop-in viewing only (non-participatory).
Wednesday
1pm – 5pm
Community making day – come and make alongside the artist and add to the installation. Collage drop-in open, installation evolves.
Thursday
2pm – 4pm
Open studio during the afternoon, guest artists visiting.
Have tea with Grief.
6pm – 8pm (Workshop)
Join us for a collaging workshop. Free. BYO cardboard (can be recycled, box etc).
Places are limited. Register here: https://events.humanitix.com/collage-workshop-grief-is-a-collage
Friday
5pm – 8pm
Exhibition and event night! Come and join the party as final works are presented and explained. Have tea with Grief, and be a part of the entire experience.
Special event for closing night:
Friday 7pm to 8pm
“Crying Contralto” performance ($20) https://events.humanitix.com/cryingcontralto
With thanks to Shellharbour City Council for making this and other artist in residency experiences possible via the Imaginarium.