21 Oct Micro-interview | Pippa Mott
Sticky Teeth’s micro-interviews feature words on the intersection of art and writing. For the 14th edition, we spoke with Australian curator and arts leader Pippa Mott.
Pippa Mott has gained extensive experience in the arts and cultural sector through various roles at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Mona Foma, Artist Profile, the Antarctic Arts Fellowship, Art & Australia and the Australian Museum. Most recently, she led Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf into its third year of operations.
Pippa is now based in Gariwerd (Grampians National Park), where she has taken up the role of CEO of WAMA – The National Centre for Environmental Art. WAMA is set to open in 2025.
When not curating, writing, viewing or thinking about art, Pippa is spoiling her rescue greyhound, surfing, hiking or thrifting.
From your POV, what stands out in art writing/ language right now?
Every so often a word, or a literary device, becomes a crutch; totally omnipresent within art writing. I just googled the use of ‘conjure’ over time. We’re not quite at 1800 levels of popularity, but I am sure that our industry has contributed to the recent peak. Conjure has a hold over me that I cannot shake.
Someone help me, please.
& someone in the arts that stands out in how they deal with language?
Katy B Plummer has a way of framing complex ethical and spiritual quandaries with guts and poeticism.
Can you share some of their words?
“There is an Anglo-Celtic pagan tradition in which The Grey Mare, a horse’s skull adorned with flowers, arrives in dark mid-winter. She knocks on doors and sings in riddles, and when you exhaust your answers – which you certainly will – you must invite her in.”
This is the preamble to Katy’s monumental 2023 operatic installation project, ‘Margaret and the Grey Mare’ – an exploration of ‘witchcraft as a feminist framework, and the troubling gifts passed down through lineage’.
& something exciting and writing-related you've worked on lately?
In my most recent role as Director of Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, I developed ‘Office Hours’ – a low-cost writing intensive for artists, to time with our call out for exhibition proposals.
The program offered one-on-one consultation sessions with a panel of experts – Elli Walsh, Benjamin Clay, and Anna Waldmann – providing the time and space for feedback on artist bios and exhibition statements.
Our set aim was to demystify the expectations and conventions of these texts.
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