On ACCA’s 30th Anniversary: Susan Norrie, Undertow

Undertow was a specially devised project that emphasized the epic spaces of ACCA’s new commission hall by one of Australia’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, Susan Norrie. Using the new space as a form of architectural origami, Norrie created a project rich in images of nature in rapturous states. Simultaneously orgasmic and calming, the walls of ACCA shifted and pulsed with volcanos, blossoms, mud pools, clouds and so forth in a dramatic sequence that utilised the grandiose scale and vertiginousness of the space.

Susan Norrie’s project was the first in a series of important new Australian commissions. It was presented as part of the 2002 Melbourne Festival Visual Arts Program.