Mass/mess presents a collection of brooms for viewers to peruse onsite at Window. This exhibition is a result of the efforts of the artist to bring together variations of the humble broom in a reframing of the object into an art context. Placed in this installation, the objects become artefacts; they are relics of the spaces they used to inhabit and function in. Within the collection, they also come to represent the people and/or institutions who have generously loaned them out to the artist.

Together, the individual objects create an installation that considers the broom’s materiality and thing-power. The brooms are in order and then out of order. Some have been interfered with through visible ‘improvements’ and others have been dismantled into the parts that make it whole.

Samantha Cheng works across installation, sculpture, and video to examine the role of failure and humour in art making. In her practice she utilises strategies such as never beginning, pursuing purposelessness, or devising ways to ensure irresolution to reconceive failure as a generative space. She is based in Tāmaki Makaurau and completed a Master of Visual Arts at Auckland University of Technology in 2021. She has been acquiring brooms since June 8th 2023.