quicksand

Curatorial, Exhibition Identityquicksand is a speculative exhibition, presenting perspectives on the climate crisis from across the Asia Pacific. The full-scope visual identity was applied across print + digital spaces through an interactive website, social media posts, off-site posters and a brochure including the gallery roomsheet.

Curatorial Rationalequicksand connects stories of the climate crisis across the Asia-Pacific, committed to sharing the voices of those most acutely affected by global heating. The exhibition intends to share individual and community perspectives, whilst also presenting new imaginings and speculations on the ‘wicked problem’ of the climate crisis.

The curatorial underpinning draws upon the liminal space of sand banks, suspended between water and land. quicksand itself is a liquified form of sand, created via agitation. The exhibition asks what artesian springs might be lying just underneath the first layer of our sands, hidden from our view but holding possibility for changing landscapes. At once, quicksand also draws connections to rising water levels, and its most pertinent experience in the interconnected perimeters of sand which form the archipelagos of the Asia Pacific region.

The exhibition connects land and water bodies, as well as the (em)bodied knowledges of individuals and communities. In artworks, the boundaries of the corporeal and environmental are both points of exploration and of deviation. Centered around the idea of disruption and disobedience as a positive practice, quicksand utilises creative thinking to prompt new ways of thinking, doing and being.

Thematically, the exhibition addresses the climate crisis through the lens of Asia-Pacific communities, with the artworks speculating possible interventions and disruptions which work to combat the climate emergency. The exhibition presents exciting new work by artists who exist on the fringes, speaking to the ways in which the overlooked practices of art and design can offer pertinent solutions to ecological crises.

quicksand is anchored to the very experience of right now, finding moments of pause somewhere between the land and the sea, somewhere between all that has been & all that will be. Like the ways that the tidal movements leave gentle salt crusted curves on sand banks, quicksand exists as a marker in time.

Thank you to artists: Subash Thebe Limbu, Kei Imazu, Bagus Pandega, Martha Atienza, Irwan Ahmett, Tita Salina, Sonja Carmichael, Elisa Jane Carmichael, Five Mile Radius, Jessie French, Megan Cope, Katie West, Angela Tiatia and Kate Newby.

Bagus Pandega & Kei Imazu

Sonja & Elisa Jane Carmichael

Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett

Bella Tobin