Exhibitions+Artworks

Public Programs

Reading+Publishing

Over the summer of Dec 2023 – Feb 2024, KINGS Artist Run is hosting a series of public programs in collaboration with Sticky Institute and Melbourne Women in Film Festival around issues and experiences of heat.

Due to climate change, Melbourne is experiencing more hot weather and heat wave events than ever before. In Melbourne, we currently average 11 days greater than 35 degrees and expect this to rise to 16 days by 2050.

Known as a ‘silent killer’, extreme heat causes more fatalities than all other natural hazards combined. Heat is not as visible or visually shocking as other climate hazards such as flooding or bushfires. This means it does not have the same awareness, understanding, or management attention as that of other hazards. 

There is a public misperception when it comes to the issue of extreme heat risk. Many people do not think heat poses a risk to them – we want to raise awareness of the fact anyone can experience heat stress, particularly those with an existing vulnerability.

Explore the related exhibition 50 degrees and STRAY VOLTAGE screening of Do Brumbies Dream in Red? now

Artist talk with Tom Goldner on Do Brumbies Dream in Red?

Thursday 22nd February 5.30pm-6.30pm

Set amidst the ravaged and regenerating landscapes of Victoria and New South Wales, Do Brumbies Dream in Red? considers the systems which position the Snowy Mountain brumby and the catastrophic 2019–2020 Australian bushfires within a time of ecological uncertainty.

The moving image component intersects imagery of fire and heat as an industrial process, contrasted against the ecological changes of south-eastern Australia over the course of a year. Feral horses, ever present in high plains, serve as a metonym for the ways we relate to, and attempt to control, nature.

To register or learn more about the event click here.

Summer Performances

Join us Saturday 24 Feb for performances by Debris Facility and Kori Miles, to be followed by a live improv set with Public Leisure into the evening.

Debris Facility performs text alongside sound and entropic ice installation. Assembling info-poetics through decomposition, we dive into the waste infrastructure of plastics, grasping at the micro -macro practices of oily material supply chains.

Kori is an interdisciplinary and process-based takataapui artist, currently working and living on sacred Wurundjeri land in Naarm/Melbourne. Their practice manifests visions that confront the ongoing damage of colonial and heteronormative social structures, whilst concurrently fostering a space for contemplation on transgression, eroticism, liberation, humour, healing, regeneration and resilience.

Public Leisure are a Footscray-based trio that blend elements of Alternative, Soul, Jazz, Electronica and Hip-Hop. Performing a rare improvised set, Public Leisure will be joined by a special guest, Oliver Wheelan.

Performances begin at 4pm, followed by improv set at 5pm.

On Housing Justice and Heat: An interview with Kit Regan by Juni Per

“The weather can affect people’s mental health through disorientation. If you’re hot and bothered, if you’re under that extra feeling of surveillance, if you’re sitting with a level of distress and some trauma history and you don’t have any capacity to remove yourself, then you’re sitting in that extra little bit of stress all the time.”

Juni Per interviews Kit Regan on their experience of homelessness and heat, exploring housing justice and the potential of systemic change and solidarity within the housing crisis of Naarm/Melbourne.

Click here to read the full interview now.

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KINGS Reading Room

Over the summer we have collated resources and readings around heat safety and awareness, from climate change to eco practices, sustainable housing to cool cities. The Reading Room will be launched on Sun 17th Dec 2pm and we are excited to announce this will be a new permanent part of KINGS. Following the summer, we plan rotate through different themes of interest to provide a space of learning and respite from the hellfire that burns around us.

To access the digital Reading Room click here.

KINGS Heat Workshops

hot houses: Artist Book Workshop with Bea Rubio-Gabriel

Saturday 20th January 12.30pm-2.30pm

In this workshop, we will be developing monoprints of the hot houses we have been living in as we talk through the summer/rental experiences together and arm ourselves with tools to survive the upcoming heat.

To register for and learn more about the event click here

Climate, Dreams and Symbols: Writing Workshop with Manisha Anjali

Sunday 21st January 3pm-5pm

In this writing workshop we unearth dreams, imaginative and unconscious responses to ecological grief and climate change. We look towards the Anthropocene and seek collective imagining amidst environmental destruction.

To register or learn more about this event click here

KINGS Reading Conversations

I. ‘Hip Bone Sticking Out’: Murujuga and the Legacy of the Pilbara Frontier’ with Aaron Claringbold and Rebecca McCauley

Monday 18th December 5.30pm

In his essay on the legacy of the Pilbara Frontier, Mark Mckenna draws a direct line between Perth’s CBD based mining operation centers and Joseph Banks’ telescope; searching out and enabling mass resource extraction from far afield. Mckennaargues that ‘no other space in Australia reveals as much about the way in which technology has changed our relationship with place.’ In considering this provocation and chapter more broadly, Rebecca and Aaron will host an open conversation about suburban beachside NIMBYism and how distance and disconnection maintain some of the most significant extraction projects the world has ever known. 

To register for the event click here.

II. Semiotic Infernos: Unpacking representations of the climatic crisis with Katie Paine

Tuesday 19th December 5.30pm

From paintings of hellfire throughout the Catholic imaginary to Instagram reels of Australia’s 2020 bushfires, this reading group discusses the ways in which global events have been publicly represented. Responding to T J Demos’ eFlux essay “The Agency of Fire: Burning Aesthetics” the reading group seeks to understand what looking to past depictions of disaster can tell us about our current sphere.

To register for the event click here.

III. Rituals for Climate Change: A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice with The queer ecology collective

Thursday 18th January 5pm

The queer ecology collective invite you to participate in a focused reading of the book ‘Rituals for Climate Change: A Crip Struggle for Ecojustice’ by Naomi Ortiz. Naomi Ortiz is a poet, writer, and visual artist whose intersectional work focuses on self-care for activists, disability justice, climate action, and relationship with place. This will be accompanied by small heat related rituals including a tea ceremony using flowers and fruits collected from participant’s gardens.

To register for the event click here.