14 — 23 November
11am — 6pm
South Magdalen Laundry
Free entry
Cultural Walk $50
14 — 23 November
11am — 6pm
South Magdalen Laundry
Free entry
Cultural Walk $50
We Are Exploding examines air as a site of collapse. Across two major installations, Things Fall Apart and Trembling, the exhibition uses materials of and in the air: carbon from pollution, lead shot, meteorites, plant distress pheromone. Suspended, dilute, and thunderous, these materials of the climate crisis speak to both the invisibility and the spectacle of collapse, and the confluence of personal and environmental catastrophe.
Things Fall Apart
A column of mist mixed with a plant distress pheromone (methyl jasmonate) falls into a vast circular void. Viewers are invited to step beneath the vapour, soaking in the splendour of the work while simultaneously inhaling its disaster.
Trembling
Yoking planetary collapse from the deep past to our current moment, this work lingers in the suspended moment just before impact, holding in tension the instant and the aeon. Ice bergs of dry ice sublimate, releasing contentious materials of the air: fragments of the KT Boundary, the residue of the meteorite that saw the end of the dinosaurs; spent lead shot, collected from the grounds of a shooting range; carbon derived from air pollution; fragments of mining explosions emerges from carbon dioxide in its solid state. The impacts are amplified, giving voice to the edges of our perception to notice the slow accumulations and collisions of disastrous force.
Saturday 15 November
Join us for a Convent curated experience of the exhibition and surrounding environment.
10.30am — 12.30pm | Cultural Walk with Wurundjeri Senior Environmental Educator Joe Costello
12.30pm — 1pm | Refreshments and exhibition viewing,
1pm — 2pm | Artist in Conversation with Jeff Khan
2pm — 3pm | Sound Performance by Evelyn Ida Morris
These events are free, but registrations are recommended.
Sunday 16 November
1pm — 2.30pm | Writers Nisha Madhan, Tahmina Maskinyar and Roslyn Orlando respond to the exhibition in a special afternoon of readings.
This event is free, but registrations are recommended.
On the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation, award-winning artist Emily Parsons-Lord makes visually stunning, embodied installations and performances. They elicit wonder and provoke critical re-examination of some of our most fundamental materials: air and explosions. These materials of the climate crisis speak to both the invisibility and the spectacle of collapse, and the confluence of personal and environmental catastrophe.
Jeff Khan is a writer and curator based in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). Currently the Creative Director of Asia TOPA: Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts, at Arts Centre Melbourne and formerly Artistic Director and CEO of Performance Space, Jeff works at the intersection of performance, dance, visual art and sound and has a particular interest in experimental and cross-disciplinary practices. At Performance Space, Jeff curated and oversaw the annual Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, as well as a year-round program of artist development, residencies, and international exchange. Jeff’s recent curatorial work is focused on the Asia Pacific is particularly engaged with exigent issues in the region, from queer and feminist conversations to artists’ responses to environmental, political, and intercultural complexities. Jeff has previously held positions and Guest Curatorships at the Next Wave Festival, Gertrude Contemporary, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. He has participated on juries and assessment panels for the Taishin Art Award (Taiwan); Create NSW; the Australia Council for the Arts; Arts Northern Rivers, and many more.
Evelyn Ida Morris is a gifted composer, celebrated for his dexterity across multiple instruments and for composition that is complex and structurally adventurous. They have released more than a dozen albums, under their own name and as the experimental pop act Pikelet. With Pikelet, Evelyn toured independently all over the world performing and collaborating with other artists. Evelyn has been nominated for the Australian Music Prize four times and has won The Age Music Victoria Award for Best Experimental Musician and the 2022 Amplify Award.
Nisha Madhan (India/Aotearoa) is an independent artistic director and Creative Producer at Asia TOPA. Until recently she was the Lead Creative Producer at Next Wave in Naarm, Melbourne and the Programming Director of Basement Theatre in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her eclectic career includes creating, directing, and producing experimental live art, performing on stage and screen, and critical writing. She took part in a three-year arts residency curated by Basement Theatre, Forest Fringe (UK) and West Kowloon Cultural District (HK). In 2022 she toured her co creation, Working On My Night Moves, a live art exploration of feminist futures to Rising Festival in Melbourne. In 2023 she co-directed Aoteroa’s inaugural Festival of Live Art, F.O.L.A. [AKL] in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.
Tahmina Maskinyar is a curator and writer committed to amplifying the existing capacities of others. Born in Kabul, raised near the Djarlgarro Beelier (Canning River) on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja and now based in Naarm (Melbourne), her creative practice is informed by her lived intersection of queerness and diasporic unbelonging. Tahmina is currently Curator at West Space, a contemporary art gallery located in Collingwood Yards. Her previous roles include working in the not-for-profit arts sector, in academia and as a core team member of Australia’s participation in the Venice Biennale including Marco Fusinato: DESASTRES, 2022 and for Archie Moore’s kith and kin in 2024. As a writer, she contributes to national publications such as Architecture Australia, un Magazine, Art Guide Australia and Fine Print Magazine.
Roslyn Orlando is an artist, writer and gardener based in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country. Her writing and artistic works explore relationships between language, history, botany and technology. She studied journalism at the University of Sydney, and Arts Politics at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
