31 May – 21 Sep 2025
Gallery 12, Temporary Exhibition Gallery (Level 1)
“The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Her Parts” has been commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia, to respond to the artistic dialogues initiated by the exhibition Cézanne to Giacometti.
Bringing my own perspectives to works by modernist masters Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Klee, and Giacometti, this commission critically examines and reimagines female representation in the modernist canon through interactive, participatory works that challenge conventional ways of viewing and experiencing art.
The project operates across four interconnected aims:
- Re-examining Female Representation: Engaging with the complex and often problematic depictions of women in modernist art, while offering new readings through contemporary feminist perspectives;
- Activating Play in Art Spaces: Drawing on practice-led research to transform traditional gallery experiences into socially engaged environments where visitors become active participants;
- Incorporating Maternal Experience: Bringing personal insights about motherhood and bodily connection to inform approaches to touch, shared space, and intimacy in art;
- Creating Open-Ended Engagement: Developing interactive works that invite visitors to explore, interpret, and create meaning through their own systems of reference.
Through three major installations—’The Fractured Gaze,’ ‘Ludic Folly,’ and ‘The Weight of Connection’—visitors physically engage with artistic concepts that are typically discussed only abstractly. From hands-on drawing exercises exploring perspective systems to climbable sculptures transforming passive female forms into sites of active play, and tactile bronze reliefs that challenge the “look don’t touch” museum paradigm, each work democratises art historical knowledge while empowering participants to become co-creators in the experience.
This project transforms canonical modernist works from fixed objects of contemplation into dynamic spaces for community engagement, critical discourse, and embodied learning.
Each piece approaches the central theme from a different angle:
1. ‘The Fractured Gaze’ This exercise contrasts Renaissance linear perspective with Cubist multiple viewpoints, directly addressing how different artistic approaches shape perception. By having visitors physically experience these two systems through drawing, the work democratises complex art historical concepts, making them accessible through embodied practice. The transition from “seeing from one point” (Renaissance) to “seeing from many points simultaneously” (Cubism) responds to modernist innovations while questioning their history of female representation.
2. ‘Ludic Folly’ This work transforms the problematic tradition of the “reclining nude” into a space for play and community engagement. By inviting visitors to physically interact with and reconfigure a cubist-inspired female form, the work “dismantles” the passive female nude of art history and making it active, participatory, and empowering. The use of foam shapes allows for endless reconfigurations, echoing Cubist fragmentation while giving agency to visitors to create their own interpretations.
3. ‘The Weight of Connection’ This installation powerfully addresses the sensory hierarchies in art appreciation by privileging touch alongside sight. By creating bronze reliefs that correspond to paintings, the ‘Weight of Connection’ challenges the “do not touch” rules of traditional museums while exploring how our understanding deepens through multi-sensory engagement. This work draws directly from my experience of motherhood, where touch is primary, and the boundaries between bodies become fluid.
From the NGA website:
Immerse yourself in the geometry of Mestrom’s sculpture with your whole body. Touch bronze reliefs that blur the boundary between two- and three-dimensional artmaking. Challenge your perception of space through drawing systems that invite new perspectives.
Concluding the exhibition experience, this hands-on installation invites audiences of all ages to engage, create and connect.
Children must be supervised by an adult.
The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Her Parts is generously supported by the National Gallery’s Learning & Digital Patron, Tim Fairfax AC.
Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie is on display in Gallery 12 from 31 May – 21 Sep 2025.
For more information about our Kids & Families programs visit our dedicated Kids & Families page.
The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Her Parts builds on Sanné Mestrom’s artistic engagement with female representation in modern Western art. Drawing on iconic 20th century works, Mestrom filters their legacies through her own systems of reference, to question notions of lineage, originality and influence.
As an artist and an academic, Mestrom creates socially engaged spaces that encourage play. Blending sculpture and the body, her work fosters opportunities for self-directed, open-ended engagement.
For Mestrom, her works are always expressive of the body, from the span of her limbs and their range of movements, to the marks she makes in expressive preparatory drawings. She is also driven by an understanding of art’s role as a conduit for embodiment and locator of place and how art can bridge the built and natural environments. Sculptural surfaces provide places of refuge, rest and potential for movement and action to be fully embraced by both artist and audience alike.