Bacteria, chemicals and petroleum have become agents of history. This exhibition works from the premise that human exceptionalism has led to environmental catastrophe, having infiltrated every environment on a molecular level.
Bringing together artists thinking with the molecular, the geological and the biological – and their entanglements with social relations – the works presented are diverse, traversing choreography, field research, filmmaking, painting, photography, sculptural installation, tarot reading, and virtual simulation. Proposed here is a more ethical, reciprocal and symbiotic approach to cross-species relations and ways of being in the world.
Alicia Frankovich, Atlas of Anti-Taxonomies, 2019–22. Commissioned by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Exhibition view, Gus Fisher Gallery | Te Whare Toi o Gus Fisher. Photograph: Sam Hartnett. Courtesy the artist, Starkwhite, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, 1301SW, Naarm/Melbourne and Gadigal Country/Sydney, and UQ Art Museum, Queensland
UQ Art Museum
18 February to 14 June 2025
Queensland
