2024 ARTISTIC PROGRAM

HOSSEI
’ESSSENSSSE’
14 February - 24 April

HOSSEI, ESSSENSSSE, 2024. Photography by Jacquie Manning.

ARTIST STATEMENT

ESSSENSSSE began when HOSSEI became fascinated by the sand dollar sea creatures— their shape, features, and how in mediaeval times it was truly believed that sand dollars were mermaid currency. When looking at the sand dollar, HOSSEI realised that if you were to remove the physical characteristics of a human body, you would be left with a mouth and an anus, just like the sand dollar. It is this idea that compelled HOSSEI to make the sand dollar an emblem of the show. An entry point and an exit, not just with food, but in the sense of discerning which energies come through and nourish the insides, and which are let out. ESSSENSSSE is about letting go and being one with the spirit, and embracing its purity and vulnerability. 

ESSSENSSSE is an aquatic ecosystem that explores the tenacity of the human spirit, stripping away corporeal human qualities and revealing what’s underneath. ESSSENSSSE is the third instalment to what HOSSEI calls his “sister shows,” O, presented at UTS Gallery & Art Collection (NSW) in 2023, and later THUNDERBLOOM at West Space (VIC) in 2023. Where O focused on the physical body, being up in the air and in transit, and THUNDERBLOOM looked at the human psyche, the weather in the mind, a stormy night – ESSSENSSSE is the next morning, the BODY, MIND, SPIRIT after a big night, looking at the sea for new beginnings.

VERGE DIGITAL
SOPHIE PENKETHMAN-YOUNG
’ROBOT//DOG’
21 March
Screening online 5 April - 5 September

Sophie Penkethman-Young, Robot//Dog, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Robot//Dog is a kaleidoscopic video essay on humans, dogs, AI and the multitudes they all contain. I’m not joking.

A dog is not a real animal, no really! We made dogs, we selectively breed them, plucking out the pliant ones and then we program them. We program them to assist us crossing the street, to hunt down wrong doers, cuddle us at night, and make us look attractive to prospective partners. The dogs work for the state, they work for the airports, they work for the farmers, they work for the family. The dogs come up to us at the cafe and lick our fingers joyfully, the dogs come up to us at the train station and smell us accusingly. 

The dogs are made of flesh, the dogs are made of wires, the dogs are at the museum and the fashion show. We know that there are good dogs and bad dogs and that the way we train them impacts the way they turn out. If we know that dogs can be all these things then maybe we can hold that complexity for other programmable beings.

It is hard to hold ambiguity, especially for things that are innocuous and all around us. But we can hold it for dogs.

VICKY BROWNE
‘INTO THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS THAT SPANS THE VASTNESS OF SPACE AND THE INFINITESIMAL SCALE OF MICROCOSMS’
6 May - 5 July

Vicky Browne, Into the interconnectedness that spans the vastness of space and the infinitesimal scale of microcosms, 2024. Photography by Jessica Maurer.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Into the interconnectedness that spans the vastness of space and the infinitesimal scale of microcosms embarks on a journey through the complexities of our embeddedness within technology, material, and ecologies.

Intricate dynamics at play within our interconnected ecologies and the intrinsic ‘thingy-ness’ of things are considered. Posing questions about power dynamics and the stuff of ‘us’, Into the interconnectedness… is an exhibition that playfully interrogates levitating laundry lint, screaming rocks and DIY electronics, prompting reflections upon who truly holds agency in our techno-ecological existence.

CONNOR CHEN, EMILY GREENWOOD, RAYMOND HUYNH, IAI, LUKAS KALOS, MAËLYSE XINH LECULIER,
JINGRU MAI (MOIRA), KATE MCGUINNESS & ZÖE MARNI ROBERTSON
‘OPTING OUT’
22 July - 23 August, 2024

Opting Out, 2024. Photography by Jessica Maurer.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

Functioning as a timestamp of student life in 2024, Opting Out takes a satirical, playful, and critical stance on labour and leisure, work and play. The exhibition looks at the concept of working to live, not living to work, and alternative ways to approach ‘the grind’ or systems that work against the individual. 

Opting Out is a group show presented by students and recent graduates of Sydney College of the Arts, marking the 15th Anniversary of Verge. Artists in the show consider trends and anecdotal narratives around cost of living conversations such as ‘quiet quitting’, little treats’, capitalist critiques, eco-consciousness, and alternative space

KYLIE BANYARD
’soft landing’
2 September – 4 October, 2024

Kylie Banyard, soft landing, 2024, installation view. Photography by Jessica Maurer.

ARTIST STATEMENT

You touch a blushing blossom’s petal

I sink into canvas soaked in plant colour

We hold soft Correa to our chests

soft landing is a love song dedication to my two sons. Made in response to the challenges of raising boys within a violent world in deep social and ecological crisis, the works in this exhibition represent an urgent desire to shower my children in flowers and a sense of radical hope for their futures. Marking the second in a series of exhibitions inspired by a walking ritual performed with my youngest son in which we document our affective encounters touching and talking to plants. Together we photograph each other’s careful touch, wilfully suspending the moment of contact as we talk about the way a plant feels and smells. This playful process holds a certain magic for us, drawn from the rhythms of everyday life, it brings us closer to together as we share in the experience of learning how to connect with this place we call home – as we try to make our way as settlers and visitors on the unceded Country of the Dja Dja Wurrung people.

Across the exhibition, the moment of touch is represented in paint and invited through the haptic quality of textiles and soft sculpture. Touching and talking to plants highlights what is at stake when living earthbound – like a plant. These works, and the collaborative processes involved in their making, question what careful time spent encountering and contemplating the lives of these enigmatic more-than-human keepers-of-place might teach us about other, more gentle ways of being in and of the world.[1]

[1] Clark, Martin. The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree, ‘On Being Sessile’, Camden Art Centre, 2021, p. 183.

’2024 USU CREATIVE AWARDS’
14 October – 15 November, 2024

Left to right: Mana (Maro) Sugimoto, Move forward! dreamer., 2024; Estelle Yoon, Abeoji (아버지), 2024; Connor Chen, chair video archive (reupload), 2024.