6 JULY - 30 JULY 2022
BACK GALLERY

Dan Schulz, Otis Filley & Michael Ross
Tending Toxicity

The artists acknowledge the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, and the Wilyakali and Paakantyi people of the Barkindji Nation. We pay our respects to Elders, past and present. These lands have sustained our life and artistic practice, and we acknowledge that the unceded land and waterways of Australia always was and always will be Aboriginal.

Tending Toxicity draws upon compulsive acts of care as the artists grapple with the hopelessness of ecosystem collapse. Ecosystems decimated by violence are biophysically, socially, spiritually, and culturally toxic, leaving communities with little option but to adapt to this toxicity through a process of tenderness. In this multimedia exhibition, Michael Ross, Otis Filley and Dan Schulz explore the human relationship to degraded environments, collecting stories of human and animal victims, and documenting their own relationship to ecological care as an artistic process.

Otis Filley and Dan Schulz live in relationship to the Darling-Barka River, a sacred and ancient river whose existence is threatened by water extraction and climate change. During the worst drought in living memory, these two video artists documented the struggle of human and animal communities which depend on the river for life. For three months they walked the river daily and followed the efforts of fish rescue volunteers as they relocated Murray Cod to preserve the endangered fish from toxic refuge pools.

Michael Ross’ work preserves the fragments left behind after the 2019 bushfires by collecting and caring for objects rich in memory and story. Through a process of cleaning, Ross’ contemplative practice comes to terms with the horror and beauty of climate violence. Drawing upon his inherited memory of the Holocaust, his practice compulsively preserves objects in a state of abandonment, where they become symbols of life.

Please be advised that this exhibition contains images of animal death, distress and sick Country, and may be disturbing to audience members.

Artist Bio

Dan Schulz and Otis Filley are two video artists living in far west NSW on Wilyakali Country. They pursue stories that explore the uniqueness of the Australian continent and the human connection to land and water, seeking to learn from endangered ecological communities, fragile ecosystems and rare knowledges that are under threat in the Anthropocene. They are privileged to be living on the Darling-Baaka river and working alongside the community to tell their stories of a river system caught between a changing climate and the over extraction of Australia's water resources.

Michael Ross is an Australian artist, architect and creative director whose interests lie in conceptual possibilities attainable in art installation, exhibition design and innovative project documentation. As a descendent of Holocaust survivors who were granted asylum in Australia, Ross is keenly attuned to the significance of memory, education, and cultural custodianship. In 2019, Ross’s practice was to become heavily informed by his desire to come to terms with the catastrophic condition of the environment and its effects on humanity.