Institute of Modern Art

Listen to artist Caitlin Franzmann, gardener Kate Wall, and ecologist Renee Rossini in conversation about understanding and responsibly working with weeds. The panellists share stories about getting to know plants that have been deemed unwanted and discuss the values that underpin such classifications. From a garden ‘soil improver’ to an environmental weed that has endangered a butterfly species,...

In an era defined by human impact on the environment and overlapping crises, is art’s poetic and critical capacity to influence change—what Elaine Scarry describes as their status as “fragments of world alteration”—being challenged or affirmed? How do artists see their work in this new era? Join artists Kinly Grey, Warraba Weatherall, Tintin Wulia, and host and exhibition curator Tim Riley Walsh,...

Join artists Dale Harding and Judy Watson, Firesticks Alliance representative Leeton Lee, and panel host Shannon Brett, in the first of a series of three panels expanding on key themes of the exhibition On Fire: Climate and Crisis. This discussion looks at fire as a colonised entity within Queensland and Australia, the revival of cultural burning practices, their potential application to combat gl...

Join exhibition curator Freja Carmichael along with artist and publication designer Jenna Lee and award-winning, contributing poet Ellen van Neerven for a live panel discussion, celebrating the launch of exhibition publication long water: fibre stories. long water: fibre stories illuminates spiritual, ancestral, and physical connections to water through fibre practices of artists from Yuwaalaraay...

This panel discussion takes off from the work of INFRACTIONS, specifically its use of the moving image to address the colonial infrastructure and cultural dimension of fossil gas expansions. The conversation looks to discuss the relationship between ‘the situation’ of gas-fired futures, matters of cultural responsibility, survival, and refusal. Join Que Kenny, Phillip Marrii Winzer, Vernon Ah Kee,...

'INFRACTION'S features First Nations campaigners fighting threats to 51% of the Northern Territory from shale gas fracking, where 90% of the population relies on groundwater. Since the unconventional gas industry’s birth in Queensland, Australia is now the leading exporter of this fossil fuel globally, while since the filming of 'INFRACTIONS' the Federal Government has since doubled down on planet...

Join Georgia Morgan, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within her practice. Georgia Morgan lives and works in lutruwita/Tasmania. Her practice explores the assumed hierarchies of materials and places through site-based research, performance/invented ritual, and sculptural installations. She...

Join Tom Blake, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within his practice. Tom Blake’s solo and collaborative practice contemplates the psychological, architectural, and technological frameworks that surround us through fragmented moments, looped imagery, and recurring motifs. Drawing is the st...

Why follow a border-crossing industry as it makes its way across Countries, and how do we refuse mining companies’ cultural work? INFRACTIONS was made in the wake of the NT Scientific Inquiry into fracking and connects the Queensland and NT stories of approvals. Drilling and legal activism has commenced in the Beetaloo Basin following a brief period of rest and healing during the early days of the...

Join Martin George, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within his practice. Martin George is a Sydney-born, Melbourne-based artist who works with painting and drawing. He creates visual conversations between different types of mark-making—impulsive or considered—that depict imaginary environ...

Join Athena Thebus, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within her practice. Athena Thebus uses sculpture, drawing, and writing to explore notions of desire. She has presented solo and collaborative work at Next Wave Festival, Performance Space’s Liveworks Festival, Campbelltown Arts Centre,...

Join Guy Louden, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within him practice. Guy Louden is an Australian artist and curator living in Fremantle/Walyalup and born in Toronto. Louden’s practice explores notions of capitalism, technology, and what the distant future may look like in the face of a s...

Join Jess Bradford, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within her practice. Jess Bradford is a Singaporean-born and Sydney-based artist working across painting, ceramics, video, and installation. Her work explores her mixed-race heritage by examining representations of cultural and national...

Join Emily Parsons-Lord, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within her practice. Emily Parsons-Lord’s practice is concerned with air and explosions. Recent work has recreated the air from past eras in Earth’s evolution, recreated starlight in coloured smoke, and experimented with pheromones,...

Join Lachlan McKee, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within his practice. Lachlan McKee’s practice boils down the logic of pleasure, desire, and cultural production through painting, collage, and animation. Born in 1998, McKee lives and works in Melbourne. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (...

Join Nabilah Nordin, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within her practice. Nabilah Nordin is a Singaporean-Australian sculptor. Interested in material invention, her installations embrace a wonky craftsmanship, playfully celebrating the monstrous, visceral, and anthropomorphic qualities of...

Join James Nguyen, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within his practice. James Nguyen uses documentary and performance, working with family and friends, to make work about the politics of art, self-representation, and collective risk. Nguyen was the recipient of the Clitheroe Foundation Sc...

Join Talia Smith, curator of the 2020 churchie emerging art prize, for an educator focussed curator talk, discussing the curatorial strategies applied to creating the churchie 2020 emerging art prize exhibition. Listen to curatorial insights that can be applied to working with students, assisting in the development of their practices and contextualising their practices within thematic exhibitions.

Join Yasbelle Kerkow, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within her practice. Yasbelle Kerkow is an Australian-born, Fijian (vasu Batiki, Lomaiviti) artist. Her work focuses on promoting Pacific communities and their stories in Australia. She is a community arts facilitator and leader of the...

Join Nathan Beard, finalist in the churchie emerging art prize 2020, in conversation with exhibition curator Talia Smith, exploring the themes and ideas embedded within his practice. Nathan Beard is a Perth-based interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses the complex interplay of culture and memory in the shaping of identity. Beard’s practice situates sincere and intimate exchanges with his Tha...

In the fourth episode of Interno, Mariam Arcilla speaks with Bianca Mavrick, a Brisbane-based jewellery designer of Greek heritage. Conducted over Zoom, they discuss the cultural signifiers, familial narratives and colour palettes that inform Bianca’s practice, as well as the rituals and DIY activities that help Bianca revitalise during times of disquietude.

In the third episode of Interno, Mariam Arcilla speaks with Sara Morawetz, a New Mexico-based Australian artist, investigator and method maker. Sara explores the emotional and psychogeographical forces behind scientific action and systems to create durational performances and exploratory research. Conducted over Zoom, Sara reflects on her first-hand experience of coronavirus, her collaborations wi...

In the second episode of 'Interno', Mariam Arcilla speaks with Sezzo, a proud Ngāpuhi woman whose practice investigates what it’s like to be a modern Māori within club music and sociology. Conducted over Zoom, they explore BIPOC narratives in art, music and science, seeking solace during a pandemic, and how cultural knowledge can be manifested through the dancing body. Sezzo also discusses her ear...

In the first episode of 'Interno', Mariam Arcilla speaks with Gabriella Mozo, Mal Tayag, and Marielle Sales from Sari-Sari Studio, a New York based collective that supports Filipinx and BIPOC creatives and innovators. Conducted over Zoom, this group discussion explores creativity and connection during lockdown, shared cultural identities, and social justice activism. Produced and hosted by Mariam...

In conjunction with the exhibition 'Topographic Resolutions II' at local artist-run initiative Kuiper Projects, the IMA and Kuiper presented a panel discussion and screening that considered the relationship between landscape and computer-generated imagery, both in contemporary art and wider culture. Curator Kyle Weise and artists Baden Pailthorpe and Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox discuss their relation...