INVASIVE

“The ethical claim is not for purity but for an active and thoughtful remembering of historical violences in the midst of the ongoing necessity of movement and change...” M. mortimer-sandilands

In response to the site at Quor-nóng/Royal park, Invasive is an installation and video work that looks to the tensions and narratives arising from a site marked by intrusion, eradication and erasure. Gesturing to the complex palimpsest of the site and its usage, the installation, text and video grappled with the incursion of unwanted, or uninvited bodies in ecological relations, troubling imagined/enforced borders, boundaries and species lines whilst questioning how to practice attentive, ecological art as a settler artist. How do we practice co-operative ways of living attentively and care-fully with the non-human world as uninvited guests on Kulin land?

The installation featured a text based response to the site, and objects collected from the site. The text was inscribed using eco-safe, edible ink, and subsequently placed in the creek on site, for alteration/addition. Video of the text and water collaboration was embedded in the installation using a QR code and can be viewed here.

Developed for group exhibition Praxis; Circling the Compass, by Assemblage Theory, Invasive continues an ongoing investigation into direct site collaboration, inviting non-human participation through an inclusive methodology that centres embodied and embedded knowledge. Assemblage Theory is an ongoing program of interventions within public space. Praxis; Circling the compass' is the pioneering edition of this project, an event based collaborations of artists, writers, performers and musicians presenting an ephemeral response to place. It seeks to operate outside, but parallel to the systems and hierarchies of the existing art institutions and the formal regulation of space.

With overt reference to both radial reflections on land and the restrictions of movement and interactions during COVID-19 lockdowns and its occult and esoteric connotations, the exhibition will present the responses of several artists, writers and performers to these ideas within a location in Royal Park in Melbourne.

Featuring:
Christian Bishop
Tash Brennfleck
Luna Mrozik Gawler
Linsey Gosper
Paul Kalemba

Installation

Led by site (-37.779405, 144.952351), Wurundjeri Country

Photography by Devika Bilimoria 

Praxis; Circling the Compass 2020