What happens when a giant telepathic cephalopod from hell takes revenge on Hoddle Street's stormwater drains and perpetrators of pollution, and why wouldn’t you? In Amanda Morgan’s new July exhibition, the flatbed is an intentionally inappropriate stage to amplify ocean “naturecultures” for Oceanic Care, presenting tangible recuperation and, with each sucker and tentacle, raising climate response-ability during a pressing time of ecocide. The project is part of the larger Scanimalia PhD research, which seeks to animate stories of making and caring well, and with more-than-human aquatic beings and their lively, touchy-feely senses, where their blue-green blood and three hearts are staying with a strong present tense.
The research proposed a tentacular intervention on The Bakehouse Public Art Project. The Bakehouse Public Art Project was launched in 2014 to support artists with activated, highly visible, large-scale billboard installations. The exhibition wall faces onto Hoddle Street, Australia’s busiest arterial road, where 10,000 cars pass by per hour (equivalent to 2 million motorists per week). They slow down for the traffic lights and to take in the public art installations.
This research is supported by the Faculty Graduate Research Fund, Victorian College of the Arts | Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne.
Documentation photos: James HH Morgan
