From Carrie Miller…
There are many traces of our military histories as well as the implication of war in everyday spaces and culture that co-exist in non-militaristic environments. Future War explores the invisible – or to put it in military terms ‘covert’ – ways in which the legacy of war impacts our culture at large. The show reconciles the cultural fascination with warfare and military technology with the real-world ways in which these histories are camouflaged.
The aim of the show is to bring together the work of emerging artists whose work have these traces of war or attempt some kind of reflection on that military legacy – articulating in various ways the means the small fragments of warfare inhabit everyday life.
From Lisa Sammut‘s experience of an earthquake in the City of Santiago which unearths the common destructive elements in military, cosmic and planetary forces to Mark Brown‘s more overtly aggressive militaristic installations which are the most literal response to the meanings of warfare. Aboriginal photomedia artist Nicole Foreshew instead highlights the sinister history of institutional and military oppression bound up with Australian colonial history, and Marakit Santiago‘s pyrographic painting practice is concerned with the highly politicised aspects of Filipino culture and tradition. The works are simultaneously a celebration and critique of her complex cultural heritage.
These contemporary responses to warfare interrogates it in order to understand its current and future influence, following Ray Bradbury’s maxim,: ‘I do not want to predict the future. I want to prevent it.’
Until March 30
First Draft Gallery, Surry Hills
Pic: Marikit Santiago. 1896/1986. Pyrography and acrylic on plywood. Courtesy of the artist.
