2023 ARTISTIC PROGRAM
SAB D’SOUZA
’THERE IS NO FIRE’
12 January – 27 January
Sab D'Souza, trans abandonment, 2021, hand engraved glass mirror, 770mm x 770mm. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Sab was a prolific artist in thought as much as they were in practice. They had been working on a new body of work featuring mirror and text-based objects. Honouring them and their vision for this exhibition, Sab's family and friends have recreated these works in line with their application to Verge Gallery's program.
There is No Fire explores the trauma surrounding loss of space and digital affective cultures. As audiences are constrained by the ongoing and potential recurrent lockdowns, the three major new works in this exhibition attempt to relieve these ‘difficult feelings’ by incorporating online and tangible components to each work.
MITCHEL CUMMING & KENZEE PATTERSON
’A REDISTRIBUTION’
15 February – 31 March
Mitchel Cumming and Kenzee Patterson, Redistribution (forbearing / forthcoming), 2021. The weight of a basalt millstone held in the storage of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney pressing a magnesium deboss die into twenty sheets of handmade paper for the duration of the exhibition 1⁄2 to dust, held at Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney from March 6 – April 1, 2021, 16 blind debossed prints in repurposed frames, 670 × 900mm (each). Photography by Mitchel Cumming.
ARTIST STATEMENT
A Redistribution is an iterative exhibition project by Mitchel Cumming and Kenzee Patterson, featuring individual and collaborative object and text-based works that centre around a pair of historical basalt millstones. The stones, once used in convict and landowner Thomas West’s watermill in the inner Sydney suburb of Paddington, now sit within the collection of the Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences.
This project gathers the varied ethical, material and political strands associated with an idea of redistribution, embodied within these two colonial-era basalt millstones. Resisting dominant Western narratives of settlement, growth, industry, and the developmental, the artists instead follow the poetic, speculative threads that the stone itself suggests.
The artists are working with accessible design consultants Sarah Empey and Sarah Barron to develop a series of audible descriptions for the exhibition, providing greater access for blind and low-vision audiences, as well as enriching the project’s conceptual aims.
The first iteration of this exhibition was shown at Metro Arts, Meanjin/Brisbane in October 2022.
This project is supported by the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences for the loan of the millstones. The Millstones (C4011) are made of vesicular basalt with dressed faces, from a waterpowered flour mill, used at Barcom Glen watermill erected by Thomas West, Paddington, New South Wales, Australia, 1810 -1812.
Kenzee Patterson is represented by Darren Knight Gallery.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
“BARCOM GLEN WALKING TOUR”
Mitchel Cumming and Kenzee Patterson will lead a guided walking tour of Barcom Glen in Paddington, the site of Thomas West’s watermill where the stones were in use between 1812-1832. Following the original path of Rushcutters Creek - the water source that once fed the mill’s wheel before emptying out into the bay below - the artists will reflect on the complex redistributions of landscape and population to which the millstones contributed.
“A REDISTRIBUTION FILM PROGRAM”
Mitchel Cumming and Kenzee Patterson share a collection of films that have informed the development of the project, ranging from short documentaries on the milling process itself, to the more tangential and associative. In addition to a screening series at Verge, these resources will be made available online for an extended audience.
KENNETH LAMBERT
’STASIS’
17 April – 12 May
Kenneth Lambert, Dark Illumination (video still), 2020, video (data portrait 09, identity withheld), 1920px x 1080px. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Kenneth Lambert’s exhibition Stasis is a meaningful examination of the plight of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. His thought-provoking practice engages with sequences and soundscapes generated from disintegrated digital material, prompting viewers to contemplate the human condition through the lens of technology. In collaboration with STARTTS and supported by Amnesty International and Australia for UNHCR, Stasis immerses us in the realities of trauma, displacement and prolonged detention endured by vulnerable individuals and their communities. Stasis is a component of The Stasis Art Project online platform that will include original interview material, transcripts, and essays as a future resource for communities, researchers, and clinical training. This project was made possible with the support of Create NSW and the Australia Council for the Arts.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
“STASIS SYMPOSIUM”
Stasis Symposium is an extension of Kenneth Lambert’s exhibition intended to give a voice to refugees, asylum seekers, and their communities. Speakers from diverse backgrounds will explore themes of mental health, policy, and agency with the guidance of collaborators from STARTTS and Amnesty International. The symposium is an opportunity to engage in a cultural arts program and interact with university culture. The program will also feature musical and poetry performances by participants of the Stasis Art Project.
“ART & TECHNOLOGY NOW”
Art & Technology Now will bring together a diverse range of practitioners from the art world including experimental media artist Kenneth Lambert, academics from the University of New South Wales and the National Art School, to investigate and discuss the controversial implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on artistic autonomy and creativity. This thought-provoking exploration of the impact of AI on human creativity has sparked opposing opinions, as the implications of introducing it into the realm of art making could have far-reaching consequences.
Art & Technology Now is Verge’s ongoing series of talks that investigate emergent technologies and their impact on art production and artists who work in the digital sphere.
This project is supported by Create NSW and Australia Council for the Arts.
NICHOLAS ALOISIO-SHEARER
’FEARLESS SIMPLETON’
24 May – 23 June
Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer, The Count's Beard, 2023, 3D render. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Fearless Simpleton is an exhibition of tapestries and sculptures which combine the decorative traditions of Sicilian cathedral mosaics, online subcultures, Italian folktales, and the artist's own, misremembered, familial histories. Taking inspiration from his family’s ancestral hometown, the Sicilian “ghost village” Poggioreale, and his grandparents experience of immigration, the artist presents an imagined suite of anachronistic allegories. This convergence of imagery and narratives interrogates how Western art history, imaging technologies, and uncontainable reflections on cultural belonging might make a confrontation with the real too difficult to face.
RUTH JU-SHIH LI
’STILL LIFE FROM A DISTANT MEMORY’
24 May – 23 June
Ruth Ju-shih Li, Untitled, 2022, wax, found object, flame, Videographer by Peter Morgan.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Autobiographical in nature, Still Life from a Distant Memory is a multi-component, immersive, and ephemeral installation, built on-site in the gallery that slowly breaks down throughout the duration of the exhibition. The work will be conceived in conversation with contemporary performance artists who in turn will respond to Li’s installation through ephemeral activations during the course of the exhibition.
This is the first iteration of Still Life from a Distant Memory with the exhibition moving onto the Australian Centre in China in the World, ANU (2023) and Artisan Brisbane (2024).
ANSO, RAT BEDLINGTON, LEO COYTE, IAN HAIG, ANGUS MCGRATH, AUDREY NEWTON AND YVETTE JAMES
’HORROR IS NOTHING OTHER THAN REALITY’
6 July – 4 August
Audrey Newton, Eye Heart You (detail), 2022, Anthuriums, epoxy resin, dimensions variable, The Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship, Sydney College of the Arts. Photography by Document Photography.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Primal in nature, Horror is nothing other than reality exposes the alienating and gnarly nature of species entanglement, through a set of mutable assemblages composed of hardware and organics. Horror is nothing other than reality preys on our fears, falling into post-apocalyptic and futuristic tropes. Yet, stepping back, we see a familiarity in these works and understand that they are quite close to our current reality.
Horror is nothing other than reality is chapter one in a series of exhibitions that look to provide context to our understanding of morality and the separation of humans from plant life, animal life, technology, and machines. The second chapter, Entangled Me, occurs in November 2023.
Leo Coyte is represented by Nicholas Thompson Gallery.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
“GREAT DEBATE SERIES”
”THE HORROR DEBATE”
The 2023 Great Debate Series is an extension of a public program performed in 2018, entitled The Failure Debate as part of the group show Personal Best. The Great Debate plays on the great history of debating at the University of Sydney. Pitting two teams composed of artists, academics, arts workers, and others against each other in a playful yet formal debate, this public program will see the audience adjudicate and decide which team puts forth the best argument.
KUBA DORABIALSKI
’CRYING’
CURATED BY DANIEL MUDIE CUNNINGHAM
17 August – 22 September
Kuba Dorabialski, Sunny Corner - August, 2022-23, gelatin silver print, 500mm x 500mm. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
What does it mean to be homesick on colonised land? Crying is an exhibition of photographs, sculpture, and video that explores themes of unabashed emotion, romantic love, geographic and cultural displacement, and starlings, an invasive bird species introduced into Australia in the 19th century.
Taking the structure of a fictional documentary, the work tells the story of a Polish migrant living on Wiradjuri country and the bittersweet process of her assimilation into a landscape that teems with so many of the markers of European imperialism.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
“SCULPTSOUND SERIES”
SculptSound is an experimental series that works to stretch the gallery space and exhibition themes through sound and movement. Produced by up and coming cultural producer, AnSo, SculptSound is an all encompassing experience for audiences while providing an inclusive platform for emerging, underrepresented artists.
‘USU CREATIVE AWARDS’
CURATED BY LUCY BROSNAN
3 October – 20 October
Estelle Yoon, 쎄쎄쎄 (sse-sse-sse), (still) 2023, 16mm film, 3:19min. Winner Art category, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.
Open to all students at The University of Sydney, the annual USU Creative Awards is the USU's largest creative arts prize, highlighting the very best of visual arts, writing, and music, from our student members. Curated by a Masters of Curating student each year, the USU Creative Awards exhibition is an amazing opportunity for students to showcase work to peers, industry professionals and the local community.
MICHELLE GEARIN, SIMONE GRIFFIN, TOM LOVEDAY, CHARLOTTE HAYWOOD, ECOLOGICAL GYRE THEORY, AND JACQUIE MENG
’ENTANGLED ME’
20 November – 15 December
Michelle Gearin, Prism, (detail), 2022, watercolour and oil on mounted Italian cotton paper, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Entangled Me is an exploration of human connectedness with notions and beings beyond.
Looking at modes of coexistence, works within the exhibition consider the wonderment and beauty of interspecies entanglement—the transcendental, spiritual, and sensual, showing identity as fluid over fixed and identity formation occurring not with the individual but within the links in-between.
Entangled me is the second chapter in a series of exhibitions that look critically at human-centric states of play. The first instalment, Horror Is Nothing Other Than Reality, occurred in July 2023.
Michelle Gearin is represented by Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin; Simone Griffin is represented by NASHA Gallery; Jacquie Meng is represented by Stanley Street Gallery; and Tom Loveday is represented by Mais Wright Gallery.
PUBLIC PROGRAM
“ENTANGLED ME CURATORIAL TALK”
November 23, 5:30pm - 6:30pm
Join Verge Gallery Director Tesha Malott for a curatorial talk of Entangled Me during the opening night of the exhibition.
“SCULPTSOUND SERIES”
FLOWER BOY, ANSO, EMMY HARKINS, RISAKO KATSUMATA, ARCHER ROSE, AND AMARA SHIN
November 30, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
SculptSound is an experimental series that works to stretch the gallery space and exhibition themes through sound and movement. Produced by up and coming cultural producer, AnSo, SculptSound is an all encompassing experience for audiences while providing an inclusive platform for emerging, underrepresented artists.