Exhibitions

The Air of the Now and Gone

January 26 - May 4, 2025

Christina Battle, "the time it takes to feel it," 2024, tufted rug. Courtesy of the artist.

Radical engagement with the wicked problem of climate change

Crisis, catastrophe and disaster abound in contemporary discussions of climate change and its impacts. In fact, such sentiments are so pervasive that they might have tipped into what author Cal Flyn describes as a “yearning for the apocalypse.”

The slide into apathy and despair at the extent of the damage seems inevitable, with the only retort being empty calls to hope.

Are there alternatives? The Air of the Now and Gone explores relationships to the environment, seeking to engage other affective registers, including humour, care, love, gratitude, wonder and cooperation. This exhibition resists optimism and naiveté, moving beyond hope to engender radical engagement.

Bringing together new and recent works produced by artists working in video, installation, painting and photography, The Air of the Now and Gone aims to counter apathy and complicate optimism about the future.

The selected works ask visitors to refuse to look away from the wicked problem of climate change while engaging a spectrum of resonant and unexpected emotional responses.