MICHAEL STEVENSON
The Gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies
2005

The exhibition by Michael Stevenson (*1964) forms the endpoint of his multipartite project, which he developed on to this point and for more than a year for the collection groupTwodo. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies resumes the different stages of a multipartite project by Michael Stevenson. After stages of the project in May 2004 under the title Argonauts of the Timor Sea at Darren Knight Gallery in Sydney and in December 2004 at Herbert Read Gallery in Canterbury, UK, a kick-off took already place on May 21^st 2005 at NAK under the title The partition. Here the main object of the project, a life-sized raft, was parted in its individual parts with a saw by Stevenson and with active support of the present Twodos. The pieces of parted rafts were manufactured into objects such as fans and ash trays and given to the Twodos afterwards.

Regarding content the project is based on the real story of the destitute scottish painter Ian Fairweather, who lived in Australia in the 1950s and went on a audacious sea trip, when learning from a newspaper that one of his paintings was shown in the Tate Gallery in London. Inspired by Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl he build a raft out of three aircraft tanks and a silk parachute, which so to speak fell out of the sky. After sixteen days on sea he stranded on the little indonesian island Roti, completely exhausted, soaked and almost starved. The inhabitants welcomed Fairweather very reluctant, but shared the parts of the remaining raft and understood them as delivered gifts. In return they provided accomodation and care.