Jess Johnson and Simon Ward: Terminus

‘Terminus’ is a collaboration between visual artist Jess Johnson and video-maker and animator Simon Ward. Exploring reality as malleable and multiple, the pair have produced five virtual reality artworks that will be experienced on a full-scale tessellated floor map and form a mysterious universe of alien architecture populated by humanoid clones and cryptic symbols. Touring from the National Gallery of Australia, the original iteration of this installation was curated by Jaklyn Babington who has said that it is ‘akin to a cryptic choose-your-own-adventure, a physical and mental navigation of a psychedelic aesthetic and philosophical framework.’ The ‘Terminus’ experience takes approximately 30 minutes and presents the viewer with a quest into the technological, and through time and space.

Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, Terminus (still), 2017-18, virtual reality experience in five parts: colour, sound. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Commissioned with the assistance of The Balnaves Foundation. Purchased 2018. Courtesy the artists and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

The exhibition includes a series of quilts, made in collaboration with her mother and never before exhibited in Australia, a major new video work, and on public display for the first time, pieces from her Romance is Born collaborations Mysteria Wysteria Collection alongside several privately owned large scale drawings.

Installation view, Terminus: Jess Johnson and Simon Ward, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Photograph: Christian Capurro

Heide Museum of Modern Art
2 November 2019 to 1 March 2020
Melbourne

Plimsoll Gallery
14 March to 3 May 2020
Tasmania

Academy Gallery
15 May to 21 June 2020
Tasmania

Murray Bridge Regional Gallery
25 July to 20 September 2020
South Australia

Samstag Museum of Art
2 October to 11 December 2020
South Australia

Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts
5 February to 18 April 2021
Western Australia

Geraldton Regional Art Gallery
30 April to 18 July 2021
Western Australia

Cairns Art Gallery
20 August to 7 November 2021
Queensland

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