The Charge That Binds celebrates the dynamism, vitality and power of natural phenomena and the more-than-human world, reminding us of what is at stake at a time of ecological emergency. Infused with both optimism and grief, the exhibition draws together works that celebrate a world composed of multifaceted, multispecies relations and pulses – foregrounding and reimaging modes of relationality and connection beyond the disruptive, extractive logic of capital.
The Charge That Binds presents recent artworks by Australian and international artists, alongside several key new commissions, traversing a broad range of mediums including painting, sculpture, moving image, sound and choreography. This lively assembly of practices celebrates and cultivates interdependency and reciprocity across difference in both a poetic and pragmatic register.
Grappling with the entwined issues of ongoing climate change and entrenched social inequity, works presented conjure new (and old) stories about our interconnectedness with the living world and each other, underscored by a recognition that natural exploitation, cultural domination and territorial occupation are often part of ongoing colonial processes and thinking.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of experimental workshops, discussions, performances and pedagogical investigations addressing the role of artists and art institutions in fostering collaboration, collective action and new imaginaries in response to our planetary emergency. The Climate Aware Creative Practice Research Network will host the Relational Ecologies Laboratory throughout the course of the exhibition, culminating in an intensive two-day program of talks, discussions and workshops in late-February 2025.
The Charge That Binds adopts a collective curatorial model, with oversight from a curatorial advisory group including Dr Michelle Antoinette, academic and lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Asian Art, Monash University; Professor Brian Martin, artist and Director of Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab; Professor Peta Rake, Director of University of Queensland Art Museum; and Professor Naomi Stead, Director of the Design and Creative Practice Enabling Capability Platform, RMIT University.
Curator: Shelley McSpedden
Advisory Group: Dr Michelle Antoinette, Monash University; Professor Brian Martin, Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab; Peta Rake, UQ Museum; and Professor Naomi Stead, RMIT
