A Tangled Bank

During the recent Sydney floods the eastern bank of the Nepean River broke, causing an unfamiliar comingling of rain, river, and land. As yet another example of extreme weather events in Australia, the flood was a timely reminder of the immediate, and intrinsic relationship between human beings and our natural and political environments.

Against this backdrop, A Tangled Bank brings together contemporary artists who draw on organic materials – often found, recycled, or repurposed – to create works that act as vessels to hold and transfer corporeal, ecological, and cultural bodies of knowledge. The exhibition considers the inherent qualities of the materials utilised by the artists, as a conduit to access complex and often overlooked narratives.

The artists included in A Tangled Bank engage with a diverse range of techniques, often using traditional techniques within a contemporary context, alluding to tangential experiences of environmental crises, histories of forced migration, and the displacement and dispossession of First Nations land.

Ultimately, it is these disparate experiences and narratives that come together, often in uncomfortable ways, to speak the entanglement of our shared history and contemporary climate. Our material world can operate as an archive, but what happens when these individual threads form a tangled bank? One that heaves with the strain of our past, yet also offers a chance for us to bind ourselves, and to mend.

Artists
Lorraine Connelly-Northey
Sera Waters
Shivanjani Lal
Léuli Eshrāghi
Mehwish Iqbal
Jumaadi
Sairi Yoshizawa

Curator Toby Chapman
Assistant Curator Christine Smalley

Photo / Mehwish Iqbal, Oscillation of Memorabilia, 2018, Silk Screen, Etching, Collagraph, Embroidery.