Tuesday 8 February – Sunday 22 May 2022 | Main Gallery

Launch: Saturday 19 February, 5pm - 7pm
Artist Panel: Saturday 19 February, 11am - 12.30pm
Schools Event: Thursday 19 May, 9.45am - 12pm
The Caring Effect: Perspectives on Care: Friday 20 May, 2pm - 4pm
A Night of Short Performance: Saturday 21 May, 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Face to Face: The New Normal is a major, new exhibition by Vic McEwan developed during three years of creative research exploring medical science and contemporary arts practice. While being in residence at the Sydney Facial Nerve Service, Vic has worked on the front lines of clinical treatment with patients experiencing facial nerve paralysis and examining what impact a contemporary artist might have within the clinical environment.

This visceral exploration has been developed through observations, interaction and direct sharing of experiences to create both intimate and large-scale interactive installations using sound, sculpture, photography, projection, performance, 3-D scanning and 3-D printing.

The exhibition highlights the potential for medical science and the arts to come together to nurture the human dimensions of illness and trauma, exploring issues of identity and the self through the human face.

Face to Face: The New Normal is an outcome of Vic’s PhD that he is undertaking at the University of Sydney as the first artist to be accepted into the Faculty of Medicine and Health, working under the supervision of Dr Susan Coulson (Health Sciences), Dr Claire Hooker (Medical Humanities) and Dr Paul Dwyer (Performance Studies).

About the artist:

Vic McEwan is a contemporary artist whose practice aims to contribute to and enrich broader conversations about the role that the arts sector can play within our communities.

As the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Cad Factory, McEwan has led a regionally based arts organisation to work with over 1000 artists to an audience of over 70,000 people while delivering over 200 workshops. The organisations vision statement reflects the importance of ethics in McEwan’s practice:

The Cad Factory is an artist led organisation creating an international program of new, immersive and experimental work guided by authentic exchange, ethical principles, people and place.

McEwan’s artistic practice involves working with sound, video, installation and performance with a particular interest in site-specific work. He is interested in creating new dynamics by working with diverse partners such as health, business, environment and education and exploring difficult themes within the lived experience of communities and localities.

McEwan was the 2015 Artist in Residence at the National Museum of Australia and the recipient of the Inaugural Arts NSW Regional Fellowship 2014/16. He has recently completed three years of artistic research called The Harmonic Oscillator, which explored the effects of noise within hospital spaces. He has shared the outcomes of this work internationally in the UK (Tate Liverpool), Lithuania (National Gallery of Lithuania) and Australia (The Big Anxiety Festival) with the Director of the National Institute for Experimental Arts, Jill Bennet declaring it as “field defining work” and “Arguably one of the most adventurous and profound arts-health interventions to date, both intensely moving and inspirational”.

McEwan sits on the Arts and Health Network NSW/ACT and is a board member of Music NSW. He holds a Master of Arts Practice with High Distinction and a 1st Class Honours of Creative Practice (Fine Arts) for which he received the university medal.  He is currently the first ever contemporary artist to be enrolled in an arts-practice led PhD in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney.

Vic is the Curator of the Tamworth Textiles Triennial, which is currently on a 3-year Australian tour, as well as undertaking a 3-year tour of his own photographic and video work Haunting which will culminate in an exhibition at The National Museum of Australia in 2023.