From now through December, we’re opening the showroom to PoMo Art Club for Making Sense, a rotating art installation and hands on workshop series exploring the ways art, objects and everyday life can live together.
Founded by Ethan Lo and supported by Karin Mizuno, PoMo Art Club is a Sydney based arts community creating new ways to experience and engage with art. For us, the collaboration felt like a natural fit. Eva is designed around the idea that a home should feel thoughtful, everyday. Art has a big part to play in that.
To celebrate the partnership, we sat down with founder Ethan and asked him a few questions about PoMo, art, and why he chose Eva.
For those discovering PoMo for the first time, can you introduce yourselves and share the story behind how PoMo Art Club began?
I'm Ethan Lo, founder of PoMo Art Club, short for Postmodern Art Club. PoMo started with a fairly ambitious idea: to reform how art reaches people. I'd noticed a widening gap between the two dominant "sides" of the art world, the commercial side (galleries, art market) and the institutional side (museums, collections, universities), and that gap was creating a kind of closed loop, one that left most people outside of it entirely. Given my background moving between both worlds, I wanted to bring them together and build something in between: a casual, accessible space where people could actually encounter art, rather than just view it from a distance.
I also believed artists needed more autonomy over how their work is shown and understood, and that everyday people needed a platform to build their own comprehension of art, on their own terms, not through gatekeepers. PoMo exists to do both. And true to the name, we do it in a postmodernist spirit. Postmodernism basically said art was never really about capturing some fixed, objective truth: how we understand art depends on context, culture, and the person looking at it. If that's true, no single expert or institution gets the final word on what a piece means. That's the spirit PoMo works in.
Painting by Karin Mizuno, shown at Eva Surry Hills
PoMo's philosophy is that "art isn't decoration." What does this mean to you, and why is it important to make art feel more accessible in everyday life?
Art has genuinely changed the way I see, think, and move through the world. I've finished entire books because a piece of art sent me looking. I've learned history, philosophy, storytelling, all through art. Spend enough time with it, and it changes how you live, not just how you look at things.
That's true even at a small scale, a single work on a wall at home. If it carries a story or a feeling behind it, I think the person living with it starts living a little more deliberately, a little more attentively. That's the opposite of decoration. Decoration fades into the background. Art, done right, asks something of you.
A big part of PoMo's work is helping people feel at home in the art world. Why do you think people can sometimes feel disconnected from contemporary art, and how do you help break down those barriers?
Part of it traces back to how contemporary art evolved after the mid-20th century. The moment art started questioning what "art" even is, it stopped being taken for granted, and that uncertainty made spaces around it feel more intimidating rather than less.
We're also conditioned to think that looking at something means we're supposed to understand it, and that pressure is what keeps people at the door.
I just want to remind people that art is made by people, for people. If there's one goal behind PoMo, it's getting people to slow down and think a little more deeply about life. Art is just one way in.
Practically speaking, that means workshops, where people get their hands into a medium and, in doing so, start to genuinely appreciate the time and craft behind an artist's practice, and get to make something themselves to take home. We also have art books, still one of the most accessible ways to build your own taste, at your own pace.
And we have our Monthly Salon at SevenH, a co-retail creative space in Lane Cove: people come in for a coffee and the art is just there. No obligation to like it or understand it. If something speaks to them, they can talk to us, or to a friend, about it. If not, the work rotates next month, and maybe that one catches them instead.
Art isn't essential to life the way food or shelter is. But being able to understand and appreciate it makes life a little richer, and that shouldn't come at the cost of anyone feeling stupid, or like they're missing something everyone else already gets.
How do you approach selecting artists and artworks to share through PoMo, and what do you hope people feel when they connect with a piece?
One advantage of having my own platform is that I can select artists based on what genuinely speaks to me, rather than starting with exhibition history, collector base, or institutional recognition. Those things still matter, they're a reasonable signal that an artist is taking their practice seriously, but they're not my starting point.
If I'm honest, a lot of the artists I gravitate toward work with fragmented memory in some form, and that's probably not an accident. It's close to my own story: moving between places, piecing together a sense of where I'm from.
What I hope people feel is recognition, that flicker of "I know that feeling", even if they've never put words to it themselves. A work doesn't need to explain itself for someone to feel something real in front of it. That's usually a better sign than someone saying they understand the work. Understanding is optional. Feeling something isn't.
What drew you to collaborating with Eva and bringing PoMo into the Surry Hills showroom?
What drew me to Eva is that they treat a showroom like a home rather than a display case. Furniture is obviously something you live with day to day, but making a space feel lived-in, rather than staged, is harder than it looks.
Eva does that through intentional design choices: pieces that are clearly meant to be used, not just looked at, in a space that keeps evolving rather than staying fixed in one moment. That's exactly the environment I wanted for PoMo: somewhere art could sit inside daily life instead of being cordoned off in a white cube.
How do you see art and interiors working together, and how can artwork transform the feeling of a home?
Furniture makes a space livable. Art makes it yours. A well-designed room can function perfectly and still feel a little anonymous, like it could belong to anyone with good taste.
Art is usually the thing that breaks that: a piece with a story, a memory, or a point of view attached to it signals something specific about the person who lives there in a way a sofa or a lamp generally can't. For me at least: interiors set the stage, art tells you who's actually living in it.
What can visitors expect from the PoMo residency at Eva Surry Hills, and what conversations or experiences do you hope it creates?
Walking into a well-designed showroom isn't that different from walking into a well-curated exhibition. If it's thought through properly, you leave with something that stays with you. My hope is that visitors take that experience home with them: the piece of furniture they choose, alongside the artwork they encountered next to it.
Furniture, like art, tends to be something people choose carefully and live with for a long time. It's rarely an impulse decision. There's something similar in both: a piece that's considered, that reflects a specific moment or taste, and that can outlast the person who chose it.
That's part of why I'm drawn to artists working with memory in the first place: the idea of something being chosen once, lived with, and eventually passed on.
For someone who is new to collecting art, what advice would you give them for bringing art into their home?
It doesn't have to be expensive. You can start with art books or catalogues, or a piece made by a friend or family member. What matters is that what's on your walls actually reflects who you are.
I love looking at someone's collection. You can learn a surprising amount about a person just from what they've chosen to live with.
Looking ahead, what excites you about the future of PoMo and making contemporary art part of more people's everyday lives?
Honestly, the same thing that got me started: closing that gap between the art world and everyday life.
I'd like PoMo to keep growing into a platform where people can build their own relationship with art, at their own pace, without needing permission from a gallery or an institution to call themselves someone who cares about it.
If someone walks away from a Salon, a workshop, or an Eva visit having learned to trust their own eye a little more, that's the goal working.
Making Sense
Throughout the residency, Making Sense will bring the act of making into the showroom with a series of evening workshops, each led by a different artist.
There’s no experience required. Just come curious, make something with your hands and leave with something that’s entirely your own.
August — Glaze
Hand glaze your own porcelain cup and plate with ceramicist Laura Braich.
September — Build
Get hands on with clay handbuilding by CeeCee Studios.
October — Fold
Explore the art of bookmaking with Olivia Arnold.
November — Notice
Slow down with a still life drawing session led by Karin Mizuno.
December — Draw
Finish the series with an evening of life drawing.
Sessions run from 6.30–8.30pm on weeknights, with 12 places available at each. PoMo will take care of the drinks and snacks, you just need to bring yourself.
Tickets are managed by PoMo, so keep an eye on @eva and @postmodernartclub for dates and booking links.
Take a little bit home
Everything in the current installation is available to buy in store, so if something catches your eye, it might just find its way home with you.
PoMo x Eva is now on at Eva Surry Hills, running through to December.
Come by and take a look at the current rotation, or keep an eye out for the next Making Sense workshop.
