“. . . an ‘atlas of ruins’ which are happening in our present times.”
Tucked away in a cave-like space, under layers of ground in Mona, Museum of Old and New Art’s basement gallery, Exodust – Crying Country from Sydney-born and Hobart-based artist Fiona Hall, and AJ King, a Bigambul/Wakka Wakka cultural practitioner, is an immersive, dark experience. Lacking light, the exhibition envelopes the audience into its gloom, oppressing those who venture through the torched black forest of burnt trees and debris.
Small interjections offer a glimmer of relief from the bleak setting and the scorched timber smell, releasing memories of horrific Australian bushfires, countrywide. Voices murmur through the burnt forest, probing deeper investigations. King shares, “All of the people we collaborated with for the recordings came on board through connections made through my interactions with community over the years. Aunty Aneda Dodd, Wakka Wakka knowledge keeper, is my actual Aunty.”
Fiona Hall and AJ King, Exodust – Crying Country, installation view, Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, 2022. Photograph: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Courtesy the artists and Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania
The collaboration between Hall and King began during the controversy of the Santiago Sierra/Dark Mofo 2021, the two coming together for Home State nipaluna and the Reclamation Walk. This saw Hall hand over her platform to the lutruwita/Tasmania’s Aboriginal Community. The project served as a reminder that colonisation continues, but these communities have life after (a brutal) survival.
For King, the concept of reclaiming space (as First Nations people) is present throughout his work – from writing policy, advising on built structures or through art practice. “It all forms part of a whole – a life lived in the pursuit of meaningful work and identifying and sharing opportunities with our people – showcasing the strength, resilience, and knowledge held by First Nations people, often against great challenges, pain, and suffering,” he says.
Through the forest, the audience arrive at the hut, remastered for Exodust – Crying Country from the original Dark Mofo installation. A stained-glass window made from coloured recycled bottles spells out XODUST, casting its light over a coffin with a ladder reaching up into the top of the hut. On the walls, Putin’s face, Napalm Girl, Hitler, and more uncomfortable scenes provide a burnt wallpaper.
Fiona Hall and AJ King, Exodust – Crying Country, installation view, Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, 2022. Photograph: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Courtesy the artists and Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania
Theories float up and hit you in the face, messy, confuted bleak ideas – as evident through the materials list for the artworks: recycled and burnt timber, stringybark, recycled oil tins, plastic bottles and other found objects, burnt coffin, burnt cradle, burnt rope ladder, burnt books, burnt animals, and burnt forest landscape with voices; possum skin cloak, clapsticks, and a living tree.
The viewer was promised hope. Maybe the living tree? Is this the reminder of life’s determination to grow, even in this forest void of light? “It is a dark work; we are living in dark times,” Hall comments. “It comes out of Tasmania’s terrible colonial history and devastating environmental abuse, and references ongoing destructive behaviour by political forces, and the onslaught of climate change. But it is also intended to give rise to positive change: acknowledgement of the errors of the past can promote action for a better future.”
“There is also renewal in people’s reflections; we hope people will think about their impact on Country, and understand, through the presence of the voices, that the knowledge to heal Country is still here.” King continues, “we hope people will be inspired to engage with First Nations knowledge and wisdom.”
iona Hall and AJ King, Exodust – Crying Country, installation view, Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, 2022. Photograph: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Courtesy the artists and Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania
Within the installation artworks are layered, imbued with connotations they connect the Tasmanian logging coupe with global responses to destructive political and environmental forces. “People often visit and comment on how it’s a beautiful place to live. What they don’t see is the large old trees that were here before; witness trees, reminders, and story markers,” King says. “Many of these old giants are gone, their stories untold for the last 200 years. The size of some of the stumps we brought into the gallery at Mona represents that accumulation of time and knowledge. I look at them and feel a sense of great loss.”
Beyond the cabin, seeking light and a bit of brightness, instead, the viewer is faced with constructions of disasters in bread – melting ice caps, bombed Ukraine, logging in Tasmania, the World Trade Centre post 9/11. “Crumb, an ongoing series, is intended to be viewed as an ‘atlas of ruins’ which are happening in our present times,” Hall continues. “Objects made of bread (a life-sustaining yet unstable, ephemeral substance) depict buildings and monuments destroyed by terrorist groups, war, environmental negligence.”
These sentiments carry the viewer through the rest of the gallery. The smell lingers, the dark odours of despair. With climate change, the treatment of Indigenous peoples, and war at the forefront of the exhibition, survival also appears – maybe a small glimmer of hope but one that also urges the audience to consider the role of survival and what it takes to endure.
Emma-Kate Wilson is an art and design writer based on Gayemagal Country (Sydney).
Mona, Museum of Old and New Art
19 June to 17 October 2022
Tasmania
