personal colleague; no one is a kitchen island
Eleanor Amor, Kate Bohunnis, Em Frank, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Aidan Hughes, David McMurray, Michelle Nikou, Nat Penney and Gemma Slattery
fab workshop
21 August - 28 August 2025
For every*where, Adelaid Design Week 2025, fab presents ‘personal colleague; no one is a kitchen island’ an exhibition of curated works that consider the deep connection and reliance between work and personal relationships - “no man is an island”. Exhibited at fab workshop, a collaborative and multidisciplinary studio environment, the project interrogates how interpersonal relations shape objects and how objects shape spaces.These works originate from an inquiry into the comfort and potential within isolation and loneliness and the subsequent and gradual surrender to the fact that the ‘solo work’ is an illusion. This is the acknowledgement and physical affirmation that no one is an island (nor a kitchen island).'
Expanding on the vision ‘personal colleague; no one is a kitchen island’, artists from fab studio and network share perspectives on symbiotic work and interior design through a collection of sculptural and spatial responses.
At the centre of the exhibition is a kitchen island, designed and fabricated by David McMurray and Nat Penney, for their rented home. The island brings order and utility, reflecting shared labour, care and the quieter structures that sustain daily life. Around it, small offerings drawn from the dynamics that sustain us.
Images:
Kitchen Island
‘are you sure? yep, yep, yep’
2025
folded and welded lasercut stainless steel top, compost bin, vic ash drawer fronts, ‘yep’ stamped and shaped stainless steel handles, Decoply carcass, powdercoated steel frame, hoop pine ply drawers
“We needed a kitchen island.”
Shelving Unit
2024
refurbished shelving unit from side of the road, Tasmanian oak, stainless steel
“A shelf I collected from a back street in 2021. Re-laminated, re-machined, reconstructed and a new fully gouged exterior, with Tasmanian oak inlays and turned stainless steel dividers. I’ve taken this shelf to many places and half finished it many times. It still sits in my studio, half-finished as a way to see and sort new objects and directions. Sometimes with other people’s contributions and sometimes just my own.“
‘you will disappear’
2025
lasercut and folded stainless steel, altered steel desk organiser