Near Sighted is a new audio-visual installation by theatre-maker Kate Hunter. Part poem, part sound experiment, part visual art work, Near Sighted considers the ways in which the passage of time colours our perspectives of events, histories and identities. In an innovative cross-disciplinary investigation in which texts and sounds and images are composed and contained within tiny painted worlds, Hunter presents a contemporary re-imagining of the paperboard “miniature theatres” of the nineteenth century. Centred around a series of six small black boxes, lit from within and accompanied by headphone audio pieces, Near Sighted is an immersive audience experience, bringing to life myriad watercolour cutouts set in tiny dioramas. With dramaturgy by acclaimed playwright and poet Emilie Collyer, and system design by the Australian Art Orchestra’s Jem Savage, Near Sighted is also a textured sound work which draws from archival footage, field recordings, and personal stories to unfold the failures of the rocket program and the misgivings of those who came after.
Kate Hunter, Near Sighted II: Dog And Tree, 2023, watercolour, wire, foam, paper, 100% recycled cardboard box. Courtesy the artist and fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
Near Sighted is grounded in Hunter’s trademark whimsy, and draws on the artist’s father’s experience as an aeronautical engineer in the early days of rocket design to examine our relationship to place, our collective imagination, and our post-war identity in the face of multiple existential threats.
fortyfivedownstairs
3 to 14 October 2023
Melbourne
