Image: Bonita Ely, We Live to Be Surprised (detail), 1989/2019. Installation at Southwark Park Galleries, London. Plaster, mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane
Bonita Ely: Future Tense
12 October 2019 – 8 February 2020
Bonita Ely is recognised as a leading voice within contemporary art practice in Australia and internationally since the 1970s. The intellectual and artistic groundings of her practice are diverse, encompassing feminist methodologies, Fluxus, speculative fiction, Taoist teachings, conceptual art, parody, museum displays and scientific typologies.
This exhibition brings together several works that propose darkly humorous dystopian futures and hybrid evolutions wrought by environmental degradation and genetic engineering. Each project centres around parodic combinations of different species—such as locust/human, rabbit/snail—and reflects our desires, fears, manipulation and emotional connection with other species. Ely’s works are not only inherently futurist and speculative, they are often also iterative, building upon previous showings. This exhibition includes two new configurations of installations, as well as several historical works that date from or document earlier projects.
We Live to be Surprised (1989/19) is Ely’s latest installation of ‘snabbits’ - half snail/half rabbits. Engineered as a food source for an over-populated planet by a futuristic agribusiness regime, these initially benign creatures have evolved into a feral monoculture, peeking out from the rubble of redundant technologies.
Shown in Australia for the first time since its debut at documenta14 in 2017, Plastikus Progressus 2017/19 parodies natural history dioramas. Set in 2054, it details the extraordinary taxonomies of creatures genetically engineered to consume plastic and, in the process, clean up our mess in the streets, oceans and rivers. The installation includes a new section examining the plastic pollution of Maiwar, the Brisbane River.
Also included are works relating to two other projects; a 1973 painting from ‘The Locust People’ and documentary photographs from ‘Dogwoman’ performances in the early 1980s.
Curator: Angela Goddard.
installation images
- Bonita Ely Plastikus Progressus: Memento Mori (detail) 2017/19. Plastic, cellophane, metal, photographs, sound, works on paper and touch screen. Dimensions variable.
- Image courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane.