The keeper of unnoticed sewer vermin: vinyl wall image with 4 jewellery objects

RESEARCH BACKGROUND This particular work included in the exhibition was developed for an imagined character who belongs in a futuristic landscape inhabited by small hybrid creatures that have evolved from rubbish scraps of vermin and are possibly survivors of a post-apocalyptic urban environment. Bastin brought together science fiction, popular culture, gaming aesthetics and Japanese Otaku culture to develop original fictional narratives that provide a focus and background material for the objects he creates. He also collected additional background material from an investigation of fixtures, graffiti and urban spaces in Melbourne. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION The creative works for this exhibition included four jewellery objects together with a graphic figurative image. The jewellery represents a fictional character from this fantasy world and invites the viewer to imagine other worlds and possibilities. The work is constructed from a range of materials - bought plastic models, objects found on the street, or cast components, which he manipulates by hand using traditional jewellery techniques, sometimes refining forms, sometimes eroding them. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE Bastin explores concepts such as desire and fear and how this may play out in alternate worlds. The innovative work was included in Melbourne Now at the NGV as part of a curated exhibition that consisted of 175 individual and group projects and captured the diversity of current contemporary creative practice in Melbourne. Two of the works were acquired by the NGV for the permanent collection.