In the air
In the air variously explores critical perspectives on energy and power production, consumption, excess, and human impact, past, present and future. Featuring new and recent works by a selected group of Australian artists, the exhibition highlights the realities of industry, infrastructure, and technology to the detriment of Country.
Aidan Hartshorn
Casey Jeffery
Cassie Sullivan
Emily Parsons-Lord
Francis Carmody
Sabrina Nungarrayi Gibson
Xanthe Dobbie
Curated by Jessica Clark
The Substation
29 May–16 August 2025
Silicon, steel, silver, cobalt, graphite, coal, nickel, copper, tin, lead, chlorine, petroleum, the list of rare earth metals (REMs) required to power life and living is seemingly endless. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REMs are extracted across the globe, for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, but also anything with a screen or battery.
Grounded by an Indigenous knowledge framework that acknowledges the interrelationship between life, materiality, and place, the exhibition equally draws focus to the electrical currents and electro-magnetic waves circulating within the natural realm, in the earth, in the body, in the air, and beyond.
Participating artist’s channel notions of confusion, connection, curiosity, and prompt a contemplative space to consider an urgent human responsibility to act at an individual and collective level. Presented in the context of The Substation – a repurposed power station turned multi-artform space – works of art collectively draw focus to the vulnerability and wreckage inherent to the now.
Read more in the In the air curatorial text here.
