Atmospheric Evidence

Description

Artist-researcher Susan Schuppli, anti-disciplinary artist Joel Sherwood-Spring and curator and art historian Tim Riley Walsh discuss the intersection of art and evidence in an era of climate crisis. The discussion touches on Schuppli’s 2016 film Atmospheric Feedback Loops, Sherwood-Spring’s new video work and research, and the exhibition of both within Riley Walsh’s One Vast Library project at MADA Gallery. Linking each researcher is an interest in sensing atmospheric change, thermopolitics and the relationship that infrastructure/industry has with environments, bodies and cultures. Art is considered as an alternative method of analysis beside existing scientific modes, offering another way to interpret fluctuations in Earth’s climate at a time when these changes’ perceptibility is threatened.

One Vast Library is an exhibition in three parts curated by Tim Riley Walsh and presented at MADA Gallery, Monash University, throughout 2022. One Vast Library has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

About the panel

Susan Schuppli is an artist-researcher based in the United Kingdom whose work examines material evidence, from war and conflict to environmental disasters and climate change. Schuppli’s current work is focused on the politics of cold and is organised by the provocation ‘Learning from Ice’. Her creative projects have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, Canada and the US. She is a recipient of a COP26 Creative Commission ‘Listening to Ice’ along with glaciologist Mohd. Farooq Azam and community organiser Faiza Ahmad Khan, a project sponsored by the British Council, which involves scientific and community-based work at Drang Drung Glacier in Ladakh. Schuppli has published widely within the context of media and politics and is author of Material Witness: Media, Forensics, Evidence (MIT Press, 2020). She is the director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths University of London and is an affiliate artist-researcher and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture.

Joel Sherwood-Spring is a Wiradjuri anti-disciplinary artist who works collaboratively on projects that sit outside established notions of contemporary art and architecture, attempting to transfigure spatial dynamics of power through discourse, pedagogies, art, design and architectural practice. Sherwood-Spring focuses on examining the contested narratives of Australia’s urban cultural and Indigenous history in the face of ongoing colonisation.

Tim Riley Walsh is a curator and art historian based in Naarm Melbourne. Riley Walsh is currently Curator in Residence, MADA Gallery, Monash University, where he is presenting One Vast Library across 2022, incorporating three linked exhibitions, public programming and publishing. His recent curatorial work has focused on art’s role in visualising and examining climate crisis, reflected in his 2021 project On Fire: Climate & Crisis (Institute of Modern Art, Meanjin Brisbane and Gertrude Contemporary, Naarm Melbourne). Riley Walsh is also Curator, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne and a member of Kink, a working group researching a history of queer Australian art.