Exhibition Preview: A Moment in Extended Crisis

Join us for an exhibition preview for A Moment in Extended Crisis, a group exhibition that brings together artists who track histories and contemporary resonances of movement and migration that occur against the backdrop of large scale political upheaval.

5pm: Welcome to Country by Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor
5:15pm: Curator Introduction by Andy Butler
5:30: Artist Talks by Nathan Beard and Sarah Ujmaia

The preview will be followed by the public opening of the exhibition at 6pm, please RSVP.

About the speakers:

Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor is a Gadigal, Bidjigal and Yuin elder who works in healing ceremony. Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor is a much loved and respected member of her  communities who  works tirelessly for human rights, social justice, healing mother earth and sea and redressing inequities of power and wealth across society  Aunty Rhonda is a daughter, mother, grandmother, mentor, elder and friend to many. She is currently undertaking her Masters at UTS in Decolonising Methodologies and how to respectfully engage with traditional custodians.

Andy Butler is an artist, writer and curator based in narrm/Melbourne. Recent independent curatorial projects include Always there and all a part (2017) at BLINDSIDE, Those Monuments Don't Know Us (2019) at Bundoora Homestead, and Steven Rhall & Sung Tieu: Statecraft (2024) at Monash University Museum of Art. Previously, he was Program Curator and Artistic Director (Acting) at West Space. His writing on art and politics has been published widely, including in frieze, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, Art + Australia, Runway, Un Projects, as well as in various exhibition publications and anthologies.
As an artist, he works across video and installation. Recent exhibitions include All-in-One Solution for Glowing Fairness (2019) at Bus Projects, Before the Tonsils Stop (2019) at Firstdraft, and Collective Unease (2022) with the Ian Potter Museum of Art. In 2024, he will premiere a major new moving image commission at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. He has undertaken residencies in Manila, Jogjakarta, Auckland, Sydney and Berlin.

Nathan Beard is a multidisciplinary artist who draws from his Australian-Thai heritage to unpack the porous and precarious influences of culture and memory. In exploring the slip pery intersection of family history, archives and broad cultural signifiers of ‘Thainess’, Beard’s work articulates the complexities surrounding authenticity and diasporic identity. Recent exhibitions include A Puzzlement, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2023) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2022), Husk, Futures (2022), Low Yield Fruit, sweet pea (2022), White Gilt 2.0, Firstdraft (2020), A dense intimacy (with Lindy Lee), Bus Projects (2019) and WA Focus: Nathan Beard, Art Gallery of Western Australia (2017). In 2022 he completed an Australia Council residency at ACME Studios, London. He has been a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize (2021) and the churchie emerging art prize (2020), and participated in the 4A Beijing Studio Program (2017). He is currently participating in the Gertrude Studio Program (2023-25). Nathan is represented by sweet pea, Boor loo/Perth, and Futures, Naarm/Melbourne.

Sarah Ujmaia is a first generation Chaldean artist living and working on unceded Wurundjeri lands. Her practice is largely informed by the wide-reaching impacts of forced displacement and cultural re-writing related to the diasporic experience. Applying translational processes, she regenerates motifs, images and linguistic structures in her material-led approach to object making.