Charlie Sofo brings the everyday to the 2026 Adelaide Biennial

Image: Dr Charlie Sofo

For artist, researcher and Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) PhD alum Dr Charlie Sofo, art begins with paying close attention. A lost soccer ball, a weathered book, a roadside bollard or an old antenna might seem ordinary. In Sofo’s hands, these familiar objects become carefully composed installations that invite audiences to pause, look again and discover unexpected meaning.

That curiosity-driven approach has earned national recognition, with Sofo selected to exhibit in the 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength – one of Australia’s leading contemporary art exhibitions and the opening event of the Adelaide Festival. Curated by Elie Buttrose, the Biennial explores how materials, identities and societies are tested and transformed under pressure.

A strong MADA presence

Being invited to participate in the Adelaide Biennial is a significant milestone, particularly given its role as a national survey of Australian contemporary art.

“It’s great to work with Ellie and all those artists that I admire and to be acknowledged together in a national survey,” Sofo says.

Sofo is among a strong contingent of Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) artists featured in the 2026 Adelaide Biennial. Together with fellow MADA alum Dr George Egerton-Warburton and current MADA PhD candidates Lauren Burrow and Isadora Vaughan, the group reflects Monash Fine Art’s culture of bold, material-led inquiry and socially engaged practice through works that challenge contemporary systems and explore ecological flows.

Sofo's contributions have been warmly received, with his immersive public education installation in The Studio attracting strong audience engagement. Together with his two featured installations, they represent one facet of MADA's significant contribution to the 2026 Adelaide Biennial.

Image: The Studio, 2026 Adelaide Biennial. Photo credit: Saul Steed

Art as a receiver

For Sofo, the Biennial's theme aligns closely with questions he has long explored in his practice.

“Pressure is about tension, your own and others’ upon an object,” he says. “This tension can be productive when we have the ability to respond and maybe even be responsible to each other".

Across two sculptural and video installations, Moon Update (2026) and The Whole Universe (2026), Sofo brings together found, fabricated and filmed objects collected over many years. Antennas, footpath-foraged socks, e-scooter helmets, used earplugs and urban bollards sit alongside cinematic footage and sound, while ordinary objects, from scrunched chocolate wrappers to a model solar system, take on unexpected new meanings.

Image:  The Whole Universe, 2026 Adelaide Biennial. Image credit: Saul Steed.

“I was thinking about receptivity, both literally in the form of an antenna and figuratively in the way that art can be a conduit for something” he says. “Art is an instrument to be receptive to the world.”

Image:  The Whole Universe,  2026 Adelaide Biennial.  Image credit: Saul Steed.

Finding meaning in the overlooked

The exhibition reflects a long-standing fascination with how ordinary objects carry traces of human experience.

"The scholar Sara Ahmed describes the value of used objects as not only the romanticisation of ‘what is preserved as a historical record’ but as a sign of life, a sign of exhaustion and a record of the fragility of life” Sofo says. “I see my role as an artist to be attentive to this fragility”

Rather than making statements, his work invites audiences to engage across subtle registers of feeling and to reflect on some minor details of ordinary life.

“When there is a regard for the small and a dignity for that, our relationship with the world becomes more special,” he says. “I’m interested in simple observations that become weighted – finding ways to share the weight around.”

Image:  The Whole Universe,  2026 Adelaide Biennial. Image credit: Saul Steed.

Choosing lightness over despair

Although Yield Strength responds to a world under increasing social and political pressure, Sofo believes art offers vital affective tools to charge up an audience. "The composer John Cage famously said that 'laughter is preferable to tears,'" Sofo notes. "I try to cultivate a lightness in my work that might be hard to take seriously, but I would always prefer that people laugh than fall into despair."

This same driven curiosity shapes Sofo’s work as a lecturer within the Department of Fine Art, where he teaches undergraduate students while supervising higher degree researchers. “I really like the beginner’s spirit in undergraduate teaching,” he says. “In turn I hope to be useful to students and bring enthusiasm to the studio.”

Defeating nihilism through creative action

In the current climate, cultivating this perspective is increasingly important.

"There can be a sense of nihilism and 'doomerism' at the moment” Sofo shares. “I see that as an understandable response to our current crises. Making art has the simple benefit of enabling us to actualise our desires very directly in a social context, to feel alive and connected. For students, this takes determination and bravery."

Despite the recognition, Sofo remains firmly focused on what comes next.

“The highlight is yet to come,” he says. “I’m always interested in the future and continuing to make some new decisions and new mistakes.”