Lithic Bodies (2024)

Lithic Bodies presented an expansive new body of work by Bianca Hester across two exhibitions, stemming from long-term research with the Permian-Triassic 'extinction line' visible on the Illawarra escarpment on Dharawal Country.

This stratigraphic line became a material figure for understanding the complex entanglements of its specific location, extending to planetary scales of extraction. With an emphasis on material relations mobilised through an expanded sculptural practice including video, text, walks and talks, Lithic Bodies contended with the ongoing legacies of colonial inheritance and resource extraction whilst offering ways to attune to the geologic underpinnings of place and recognise our indebtedness to the non-human.

The 'extinction line' marks the greatest mass extinction event in Earth's history, and is the boundary between Permian and Triassic geologic periods around 252 million years ago. The line bears witness to climate change in deep time and resonates with current environmental crises. The extinction line was engaged with as a conceptual and material loop between epochs where our relationships with place and geologic histories were enacted materially.

Lithic Bodies developed from situated fieldwork ranging from intertidal zones to the palaeobotanical archives of the Australian Museum. The working processes were informed by several critical companions from the fields of palaeobotany, social geography, geology, horticulture and Indigenous knowledge. The exhibition and public program was held across two locations, with each place functioning as a parallel site to the other. The expanded public programs brought multiple disciplines together through public walks and a discussion panel.

This project's exploration ranged in scale from intimate, handheld objects to a vast filmic projection of the extinction line. The installation interspersed fragmented impressions of surfaces including fossilised leaves, coalified wood, and anthropogenic pollution present on location, which reappeared as bronze cast objects, frottage screenprints, photographic images, and video. By assembling fragments that registered both human and non-human material relations, Lithic Bodies aimed to illuminate the instability of thought and materiality at the close of the Holocene. Curated by Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris

UNSW Galleries, Sydney | 27 September - 24 November 2024
Clifton School of Arts, Wollongong | 12 October - 27 October 2024

Photos by Jacquie Manning