A trip to a rubbish-dump recycle shop to find bicycles for his children has led to an art exhibition in South Korea for Dunedin School of Art sculpture lecturer Scott Eady.
The 2002 University of Otago Frances Hodgkins Fellow spent four years sourcing 100 bikes from rubbish dumps for his "100 Bikes Project".
Each bike was restored and repainted, before being rebranded with a "100 Bikes Project" badge.
"It was important to me that they were desirable objects, but I also wanted to be respectful of how they performed," he said yesterday.
An important component of the installation is that children are encouraged to ride around on the bikes in the gallery space, thereby activating and completing the artwork through their participation, he said.
Eady exhibited "100 Bikes: Part 1" at the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt from October to February, where it was viewed by a curator of South Korean exhibition the Gwangju Biennale.
"About 30 kids actually learned how to ride a bike at that exhibition."
"100 Bikes: Part 2" will be exhibited - and ridden - at the Gwangju Biennale from September 6 to November 11.
Eady plans to take partner Melanie and children Ari (10), Esra and Amelia (both 8) to South Korea for the exhibition, and has produced a limited rage of "100 Bikes Project" prints to finance the trip, which can be viewed at I Love Paris in the Golden Centre.
