A silver gelatin dry plate glass negative in landscape format.

Country Always

Caring for Country

A Corner of the Empire

The Garden Palace

Sepia photograph of the Technological Museum and a cow in the foreground

The Holding Pen

The Agricultural Hall

Sepia photograph of the Technological College and Museum in Broken Hill

Regional Networks

Across New South Wales

A Museum of Doing

Technological Museum

Black and white photograph of man walking through eucalyptus plantation

Expanding Stories

Evolution of the Castle Hill site from botanical research station to Museum Discovery Centre

Colour photograph of red corrugated iron building from a high vantage point

Transforming the Tramsheds

Powerhouse Stage 1 and the Harwood Building

A Symbol in Time

Sydney Observatory

Powerhouse Museum, Stage 2 exterior from high angle, city skyline in background

Ongoing Transformations

Powerhouse Ultimo

Blurred image from film with museum object number

Applied Arts and Sciences

Defining the terms in the 21st century

Powerhouse Renewal

Two people standing next to a cow in a field of cows.

Powerhouse Food: Producers

Across Western Sydney24 Aug 2024 — 25 Jul 2025

We Rise

Blak Powerhouse

A tall rocket with a long trail of burning fuel lifts off from a launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

Powerhouse-1 Mission Launch to the ISS

An initiative of the Powerhouse: Future Space program

Photofields

Across Sydney6—7 Dec

Exoskeleton

Powerhouse Parramatta

A woman stands on stage in front of a large audience. She has her left hand raised in the air and a microphone in her right hand. The audience are holding their phones up recording the woman.

Blak Powerhouse

Powerhouse x We Are Warriors

Slider thumb2023

Program

Parlour Parlëur

Name: Parlour Parlèur
Start: 2023-09-09T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2023-12-10T05:00:00.000Z
Location: Penrith Regional Gallery

Tag iconExhibition

when

Ended 10 Dec 2023

where

Penrith Regional Gallery

The Main Gallery is transformed into another world with Parlour Parlëur a new project by the ArtHitects (Gary Carsley and Renjie Teoh). Taking the parlour as a distinct social site that combines both the public and private, the artists have constructed a dynamic space for personal relationships and ritual in a visually stunning site-specific architectural experience.

The ArtHitects draw on histories of artmaking, architecture and practices of personal memory-making to propose new physical and symbolic spaces for dialogue to unfold. In Parlour Parlëur, thousands of overlapping A4 photocopies are pasted on the Gallery walls, creating a scene that is both theatre spectacle and optical illusion, merged with rich imagery drawn from the Gallery’s collection of art, furniture and the gardens.

Historically, the parlour was a space within the home to entertain guests and for conversation. However, over time its purpose gave way to the living room as a site for family rituals and gathering, and as our ways of socialising have changed. The parlour was also a place to receive guests and was the most public of private spaces in a domestic environment.

Within this spirit of hospitality, the ArtHitects have created a visual encounter that celebrates the often-overlooked acts of creativity within our homes and communities, bringing them into new light and to new audiences in an immersive and uplifting experience.

Parlëur, the French verb that means to talk is enacted as a call and response in the gallery between objects, animation, voice, and architecture, translating and interpreting the parlour and its histories in a richly entangled narrative for everyone to experience.

Exhibitor

The ArtHitects is a multidisciplinary duo composed of artist Gary Carsley and architect Renjie Teoh. They came together following the success of The Regency Made Me Blind (2018), their site-specific installation of more than 7,000 A4 photocopies commissioned by the National Gallery of Singapore and realised with Jeremy Chu. Based between Sydney and Singapore, Carsley and Teoh synthesise their different backgrounds and generational outlooks to evolve a transcultural visual language that expresses the lived experiences of contemporary Australia’s increasingly blended communities. Narratives of migration, labour, social history and intercommunal dialogue are important areas of inquiry for Carsley and Teoh who have worked closely with small groups including Indigenous students in Western Sydney, queer printmakers at the National Art School and the OWLS (Outer Western Lacemakers Sydney). Through these encounters they refine their focus on suppressed or forgotten histories as subjects for new, inclusive and uplifting visual encounters.

Artist Talk

Join the ArtHitects (Gary Carsley & Renjie Teoh) in conversation with Curatorial Programs Manager, Nina Stromqvist. The ArtHitects will reflect on the importance of listening in response to their current exhibition Parlour Parlëur.