Showing in the window gallery 26.11.25 – 5.11.25.
Cutting bench catalogue [PDF]
GLAMTOWN is an ongoing project initiated by Canberra-based architect and artist Vyasa McPherson.
This piece is a formply cutting bench, a temporary and utilitarian work surface used by facade carpenters (Eifer) during the construction of the expansion of the Australian War Memorial.
The surface is scored with intersecting saw cuts, revealing the graded radiata pine veneers beneath its resin-impregnated paper finish. These incisions are precise, orthogonal, and expressive, which echo an unintentional abstraction reminiscent of a Mondrian composition. The lines are not the subject, they are the incidental result of the cutting of other materials and the process of making.
The cutting bench is framed in Z-angle extrusions, a standard secondary structural framing component, typically concealed behind the façades they support. The framing is by Ashley Sibilant, a Mount Maker from the Australian War Memorial’s Collection Services team, as this work sits on the spectrum of art and artefact.
Canberra is a GLAMTOWN, a curated capital shaped by its national Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Beneath this refined cultural façade lies the robust, unseen labour of making, the design decisions, the construction mess, the iterations and errors. Much of what conceptually and physically builds these institutions, and the built environment at large, is mostly seen by those directly involved in the process.
This project seeks to reveal and elevate the byproducts of making. By collecting, recontextualising, and recomposing samples, offcuts, prototypes, templates, and waste, GLAMTOWN offers a new lens and a platform to see beauty in the overlooked. Even those deeply embedded in the process don’t always recognise the value of these remnants, yet this work is beginning to shift perceptions.