Originally due to open on the eve of Melbourne’s latest lockdown, we are pleased to welcome visitors to Gertrude Studio Artist Mikala Dwyer’s, Ode to the ????, which transforms Gertrude Glasshouse with sound, light and sculpture.
In collaboration with composer James Hayes, Dwyer’s presentation alludes to carceral-like architectures of animal captivity through the use of sound. Expanding on the artist’s recent investigations into apparitions, this new body of work explores ideas of reanimation and extinction. Expanding on the show’s context, Dwyer describes:
The ???? bird sang a last song to its mate in the 1980s. This sad song with no reply conjures many ghosts as extinctions rise and fall through the richly haunted deep time of this earth. Here I try to imagine a zoo for the supernatural populated by residues both avian and human. Electricity, colour, light, sound, magnetic fields, imprints on the ether as we dissolve into particles of memory or data. Trapped in our grid of reason, I imagine escape routes that can bend and dissolve bars, lines and geometries. Birds always remind me of escape, airborne into mesmerizing swarms guided by magnetic fields. Seeing things we have lost the ability to imagine.
An artist talk and closing reception are planned for the final day of the exhibition, Saturday 10 July, from 4-7pm.
