Bianca Hester: Lithic Bodies
- When 27 Sep - 24 Nov 2024
- Where
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Address
Cnr of Oxford St and Greens Rd, Paddington NSW 2021
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Hours
WED TO FRI 10AM–5PM; SAT TO SUN 12–5PM
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Phone
(02) 8936 0888
Bianca Hester’s practice investigates the material and geologic conditions of contested sites across the continent. Her situated mode of working responds to the temporal, social, and environmental intersections of location, acknowledges the continuities of sovereignty, and reckons with the ongoing colonial legacies of extraction. Her expansive multidisciplinary approach spans sculpture, walking, text, and video.
‘Lithic Bodies’ is a long-term project developed in the Illawarra coastal region, where Hester has lived since 2018. This exhibition of new work explores environmental entanglements surrounding the Permian-Triassic ‘extinction line’ present across the Sydney Basin and visible at the base of the Illawarra Escarpment. Here, the greatest mass extinction—when the Australian continent was part of Gondwana around 252 million years ago—is visibly registered. The line bears witness to climate change in deep time and resonates with the current environmental crisis. It acts as a conceptual and material loop between the carbon cycles of the deep past, where fossilised solar energy carries forward into the present, irrevocably shaping future Earth systems.
‘Lithic Bodies’ assembles processes, materials, and narratives generated in response to the extinction line and its associated material conditions and temporalities. This exploration ranges from the intimate scale of fossilised leaves to filmic depictions of the sandstone escarpment and its ecologies. The installation features sculpture, image, and video made in relation to the terrains of the Illawarra, as well as from geologic artefacts held in the palaeobotanical archives of the Australian Museum. The exhibition is accompanied by interdisciplinary place-based walks.
In ‘Lithic Bodies’, Hester explores ways to attune to the geologic conditions of life and our indebtedness to the non-human. She contends with the instability of thought and material at the close of the Holocene, and its personal, collective, and planetary implications.
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Curated by Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
Bianca Hester wishes to acknowledge dialogue with and guidance from the following people over time:
Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris (independent curator, writer, lecturer UNSW Sydney)
A/Prof Solomon Buckman (Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong)
Uncle Peter Button (Sandon Point Aboriginal Place Joint Agreement Partnership)
Sammy Hawker (independent artist, videographer)
Peter Hewitt (independent artist, lecturer in Aboriginal Education, University of Wollongong)
Tiffanie Ireland (Two Point Consulting)
A/Prof Brian Jones (Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong)
Nicole Monks (artist and designer, Professor of Practice, UNSW Art & Design)
Matt Poll (Manager of Indigenous Programs, Australian National Maritime Museum)
Tile Image: Bianca Hester, Dust of these domains, (performance detail), 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Rachael Tagg
Banner Image: Bianca Hester, Lithic Bodies 2023 (detail). Video still made during fieldwork at the Permian-Triassic extinction line, Illawarra escarpment. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Sammy Hawker