A Centre for Everything presented a new project that reflected on the ways in which the fossil fuel industry ingratiates itself to the Australian public. The project adopted A Centre for Everything’s signature triadic formation, bringing together the topics of Ice Coal, Data Networks and Collectiveactivity to converge in generative and revealing ways.

A Centre for Everything presented a replica of mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s public sculpture, Our Future, a 30-ton iron ore boulder inscribed with a poem lamenting mining taxes. Built with retractable handles and wheels, A Centre for Everything’s object doubled as a portable ice cream cart from which ‘ice coal’ was served during select events throughout the exhibition. Alongside this serving sculpture, A Centre for Everything also presented a collectively-generated live data map, showing links between Australian cultural organisations and the fossil fuel industry. An accompanying roundtable discussion addressed the practice and effect of artists who use data collection to incite social and industrial change within the arts relating to gender representation, working conditions, climate change and industrial ethics. It will comprise key artists in the field, involving Rachel Deans, Ben Eltham, Alex Kelly, David Pledger, Jen Rae and Natalie Thomas

About the Artists:
A Centre for Everything is an independent creative and pedagogical project that engages individuals and communities to learn, create, discuss and eat together. Their collaborative events bring together diverse topics as performances, presentations, workshops, readings, discussions, critiques, demonstrations and meals.

Founded in 2012 by artists Will Foster and Gabrielle de Vietri, the program operates in collaboration with guest presenters, guest programmers and a handful of volunteers. Scientists, artists, ecologists, journalists, teachers, thinkers, activists and more are invited to become part of their socially-engaged, intellectually-stimulated, creative community. Participants are artists and non-artists, friends and strangers, academics and enthusiasts, specialists and generalists.

^{Image: A Centre for Everything, Maps of Gratitude, Cones of Silence and Lumps of Coal. Installation view, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2019. Photo: Christian Capurro}