The Das Kapital II, archive, 2025, was an installation staged for Melbourne Design Week and the Victorian College of the Arts. It aimed to bring together the ethos that embodies ideas in connection through contemporary VCA art & design students, alumni, staff, and friends. The exhibition was proposed for both online and the upstairs exhibition space at Buxton, and the Fiona and Sydney Myer Gallery. It was based on the exhibition curated by Amanda Morgan, Brie Trenerry, and Kieran Boland, representing research by practice that grapples with the human trouble and sustainability with moving-image works in film, sound, text, and photography. The archive seeks to animate through connection to human-animal stories of making and caring well while staying with a strong present tense. It was inclusive of the following cross-disciplinary artists and designers:
Steven Rhall, John Warwicker, tomato, Janet Burchill X Jennifer McCamley & Robin Hely, Ed Kuepper, Kate Beynon X Rali Beynon & Michael Pablo, Natasha Johns-Messenger, Masato Takasaka X Liquid Architecture & Jason Heller & Warren Taylor & Damiano Bertoli, The Booreaucrats, Peter Burke X Benjamin Sheppard, Amanda Morgan & Jeff Baker, Anna Hoyle, Benedict Sibley, Bernhard Sachs X Brie Trenerry, Blake Dearman, Peter Burke, Stephen Haley, Craig Easton, Darren Wardle X Brie Trenerry, David Harley, Warlayirti Artists, Mutikur Project, Annette Cock, David Lans & Garreth Taylor & Gaby Mason, Tjupi Band & Wanatjarra Band, David McBurney, Ella and Greg Stehle, Hiball, Ian Haig, John Waller, Joseph Blair, Karen ann Donnachie & Andy Simionato & Sinistri (ex-Starfuckers), Kieran Boland, Liss Fenwick, Martine Corompt & Camille Hannan, Melody Laglína Woodnutt, Min Wong, Sonia Payes.
The show creates space for relational worlds featuring films by multicultural, First Peoples, LGBTQI+ artists that encompass how we scan and perceive digital cultures, with a vision for tangible and modest recuperation in these times of ecocide with a strong commitment to diversity & inclusion: stories and practices of becoming-with in times that remain at stake, in precarious times, in which the world is not finished, and the sky has not fallen - yet. [1]
[1] Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke University Press, 2016. P55.
https://myshrine.org/dasKapital/print.php
Poster and logo design by John Warwicker. Digital design & catalogue by Karen ann Donnachie & Andy Simionato.
