Monumental Imaginaries
Monumental Imaginaries explores the complexities and contradictions of rapid energy transition in the Hunter Region of New South Wales. The exhibition positions this transition as not simply a technical problem but one with cultural and historical dimensions. It invites visitors to consider the scale of the transformations under way, its landscapes, buildings and visual media.
By looking at how energy transition has a visual culture, Monumental Imaginaries draws attention to the legacies of fossil fuel dependency and documents emerging green visions.
Curated by Daniel Ryan and Jennifer Ferng
Exhibition Design: Matthew Darmour-Paul and Elizabeth Walling
Artists & Participants:
- Ben Brown
- Collins & Turner Architects
- Merilyn Fairskye
- Jess Harwood
- Luke O'Connor
- Prevalent
- Gino Volpato
- Christopher Wright
- Daniel Burtt, Chiara Nunes & Rabia Naseer
- Will Gallen & Annie Kang
- Sophie Hutchinson, Dylan Slattery & Ben Wong
- Melissa Li & James McCauley
The exhibition acknowledges the support of the Sydney Environmental Institute, the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Powerhouse Collection, Surfrider Foundation, Boral, University of Newcastle, Newcastle Libraries.
Detail from Just Transitions in the Hunter Valley, Jessica Harwood, 2023
Beyond Smokestacks and Solar Panels: Telling Visual Stories about Energy Transition
Energy transition dominates political, business, and environmental discussions today. Yet beyond smokestacks and solar panels, people rarely discuss what this looks like.
How then is environmental imagery changing? How can we engage different audiences and what visual strategies work best to inspire change?
Join a conversation with leading illustrators, architects, photographers and academics to consider how to use imagery to tell better and more nuanced stories.
Detail from Yesterday New Future (Liddell). Three-channel video installation with sound. Merilyn Fairskye.
(Commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum using funds generously donated by the Australian Centre for Photography, 2023)
Restorying Coal
Coal is today seen as a climate change villain but not long ago it was a hero in stories about national development and workers’ struggle.
Join a conversation with leading visual artists and ceramicists to discuss how we can take fossil fuel histories seriously, and the role artists and historians have to play in this.
Tin Sheds Gallery acknowledges the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, upon whose ancestral lands our exhibitions take place. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge of these lands, waterways and Country.
All photos by Maja Baska 2024