Artists of the Illawarra: Mimi Kind

Painter Edith McNally introduces Otford artist Mimi Kind

I have never encountered the art of making “sound sculptures” until coming across Mimi Kind, who makes kinetic sound sculptures and installations. Mimi lives and works in Otford using electromagnets, motors and fans to drive her moving sculptures.

While at their core her sculptures are machines, Mimi incorporates a liveliness and organism-like quality to their motions in order that they imitate the movements and sounds you might find in nature.

She recently won the Kinetic Prize in “Sculptures on the Farm Online 2021” for her sculpture Elma VI, which consists of five self-built electromagnet sculptures interacting together. They are a playful celebration of copper and electromagnetism, with attraction and repulsion occurring between neighbouring sculptures, and with parts of the sculptures touching from time to time.

Historically, machines were designed and constructed to work for us in a huge variety of ways. An intrinsic element of a machine is their capacity to do work. Mimi’s art re-conceives the purpose of machines, creating pieces in which the machines are not doing work ‘for us’ but, instead, are just being a machine, as and for ‘itself”.

Her works elicit personal responses to mechanical components and energetic operators such as electricity. She hopes to inspire reflection upon our relationship with the substances and energies making up our world.

Mimi has presented works in various spaces in Sydney, Melbourne, and Berlin, including Sydney Non-Objective Art Projects (SNO), Airspace Projects, Testing Grounds, XTRO Ateliers, and is in the Substation’s 2021 Development program.

You can see more of Mimi’s work on Instagram @mimi__kind or at www.mimikind.com

To be featured, write to Edith at mcnallyedith@gmail.com