It Is a Long Time Since This Moment (2018)

It is a Long Time Since This Moment

Exhibition

The artists featured examine how interrelated systems of bodies - human and nonhuman - may interact and inform one another, reimagining our relationship to the past, present, and future of the world.

WHEN: 13 October to 2 November 2018
WHERE: Old Customs House, 8 Phillimore Street, Fremantle
COST: n/a

REGISTER HERE

Presented by MOANA Project Space

Matt Aitken + Mei Swan Lim, Archie Barry, Marisa Georgiou, Hannah Hallam-Eames + Samuel Jackson, Nadege Philippe-Janon

It is a long time since this moment is a speculative imagining of how we might understand our relationships and ways of being in the world against a backdrop of rapidly shifting ecosystems, capital and labour. These changes can no longer necessarily be called ‘progress’.

As our environment deteriorates, so too does humanity’s constructed notions of the body, the self, and the human as distinct from our ecologies, our technologies, and other creatures.

The artists featured examine how interrelated systems of bodies - human and nonhuman - may interact and inform one another, reimagining our relationship to the past, present, and future of the world.

Working with nonhuman entities as diverse as algae, pigeons, and houseplants, the artists featured reimagine our fundamental relationships with ourselves and the other. Pigeon feathers are meditatively licked and caressed with the tongue, algae is co-opted as biofuel and sold back to us by corporations, eyes are digitally altered to flicker at impossible speeds, dissenting against visual examinations commonly used to misgender and delegitimise. Meanwhile, mouths are transformed into repositories with which to water houseplants in an act of care and tenderness, and intimate choruses of swamps and native Australian environments caress visitors’ ears. The works in this exhibition variously criticise, rebel, and provide hope for the future that threatens and beckons us. In this way, It is a long time since this moment explores our anxieties around the survival of life on Earth and our future possibilities of connections with other beings, objects, and environments.

It is a long time since this moment features the work of Matt Aitken & Mei Swan Lim (WA), Archie Barry (VIC), Marisa Georgiou (QLD), Hannah Hallam-Eames & Samuel Jackson (NZ), and Nadege Philippe-Janon (TAS). The exhibition is curated by Moana Project Space’s Jess Boyce, Grace Connors, Miranda Johnson, and Matthew Siddall, as part of SymbioticA's Unhallowed Arts Festival.

Hannah Hallam-Eames & Samuel Jackson,
Algae #2, Slime and Shine (detail), 2018,
Andre Piguet