Metropolis experiment

Sculpture: Mild steel, salt, laboratory glass, cotton

Artist statement:

“Metropolis Experiment” pictures a post-apocalyptic vision of a ruined city. In this abstract miniature metropolis the whole city is a laboratory. But instead of gleaming stainless apparatus in sterile white surrounds, we are presented with rusty steel tripods, like those intended to support beakers, grown monstrously huge. These structures also resemble electricity or telecom transmission towers, but they still support elaborate configurations of scientific glassware. The chemical solution used in this experiment has has breached its man-made confines, and salt crystals proliferate unchecked.

In “Metropolis Experiment” the methods of science have spectacularly failed to reduce the ineffable mysteries of nature to something that can be quantified and tamed.

At first glance this model of devastated city may seem bleak, but Metropolis Experiment is a story told in the tradition of the biblical apocalypse; it offers both redemption and hope.

Catastrophe and survival are two key elements in any post-apocalyptic story. Like its biblical precursor, the post-apocalyptic narrative in “Metropolis Experiment” is not just a vision of destruction; it is a glimpse of a possible future. This postapocalyptic artwork is an invitation to look both forward and back. Metropolis Experiment is quietly (very quietly) optimistic: maybe, just maybe, we can change.

Exhibition: The 65th Blake Prize. Held at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Casula, New South Wales, Australia between 12th May 2018 to 1st July 2018.