all our relations

I'm spending some time in Sydney this week for the opening of the 18th Biennale of Sydney, all our relations. Yesterday I dragged my art companion (my mother) all over Sydney to go to the preview of the exhibition. At the Art Gallery of NSW we ran into the guys from Postcommodity, who I did a workshop with during the Adelaide Festival. They have a work in the lower ground level of AGNSW in which they have cut a metre square hole in the concrete floor of the gallery, exposing the rocky, red earth beneath. The work is called "Do You Remember When", and is combined with a multi channel audio track, which changes as you move around the room. 


Do You Remember When? (2009–12) mimics feedback loops generated by markets and consumers in an economy driven by western scientific discourse. These feedback loops power an economic engine that simultaneously produces scarcities in the world and an industry inspired by ‘sustainability’. Postcommodity’s installation poses an important, but overlooked question regarding the historic and contemporary roles that dominant worldviews play in the evolution of trade policies and the expansion of markets. Do You Remember When? highlights the devastating impacts that these activities have on Indigenous lands, communities and cultures. For this installation Postcommodity cuts a four foot square hole in the gallery floor, exposing the earth beneath the institution. It also displays the block of removed concrete, standing upright, on a pedestal. Both the evacuation and the removed concrete are illuminated with theatrical lighting. Emitting from the exposed earth is an audio recording of an Aboriginal song. This is concurrent with a closed circuit audio broadcast activating the physical gallery space.

This arvo I will write a little about the work being shown at Pier 2/3, but here is a little preview:

Tiffany Singh, Knock On The Sky And Listen To The Sound, 2011

My plan for today is to check out the show at Alaska Projects, put on as a part of the Biennale's unofficial fringe safARI. And then tonight, Ma and I will be going to openings at Artspace and Firstdraft. Exciting times! 

All images are my own, except the post commodity work, via BOS