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69 Capel Street, West Melbourne VIC 3003

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KINGS Artist-Run is a wheelchair accessible venue. Unfortunately, there is no wheelchair accessible toilet. Please contact the gallery with any access requirements and we will endeavour to support your visit.
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About

Kings Artist-Run provides a location for contemporary art practice, supporting distinctive experimental projects by artists at all stages of their careers.
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KINGS Artist-Run acknowledges the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we operate.

We offer our respect to Elders both past and present and extend this offer to all Australian First Nations people.

Bladerunner was set in November 2019

Alex Moulis
Andrea Steves
Crunch Kefford
Gem Romuld
Jessie Boylan
Linda Dement (code)
Tessa Rex
Yul Scarf
Curated by Tessa Rex, Yul Scarf


26 October 2019–16 November 2019

Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner was set in a nuclear dystopia in  November 2019.  

and here we are.

The earth is powdered with radioactive isotopes, like icing sugar on a cake. A thin yellow line registers in our teeth, our bones and in the geologic strata. Nuclear dystopia is here and it is unequally distributed.

After a recent road trip to visit Anangu lands in and around Maralinga- one of three sites of British nuclear testing in Australia – this group of artists and activists consider the nuclear present and what it means to ‘record the future that is already here’*.  

*Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages

 

About the Artists

This exhibition is by a group of artists and activists living in Australia, Aotearoa and USA: Tessa Rex, Yul Scarf, Jessie Boylan, Andrea Steves, Crunch Kefford, Gem Romuld, Alex Moulis. Their individual work confronting the nuclear industry spans audio, photography, video, installation, community radio, Nobel fucking Peace Prize-winning nuclear disarmarment advocacy, and working with nuclear-affected communities from New Mexico to Yalata. In August 2019 they travelled together to Maralinga, one of the three nuclear testing sites in Australia.

 

Dimity Hawkins AM, Nuclear free activist and advocate; co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) opened the show.

Image: Yul Scarf & Tessa Rex, 2019, Tears in the Rain, projection on silver party tassels

See all projects by:


  • Alex Moulis was born and continues to live in Sydney, on Gadigal land of the Eora Nation. Through their practice Alex explores the nature of borders, boundaries and exclusion through visual imagery. Their work attempts to make small poetic gestures of solidarity towards those affected by Australian Government policy specifically, and processes of ‘othering’ and marginalisation more broadly. Alex is also an Officer with the Department of Homo Affairs, a queer activist and performance group. They have recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photomedia at the National Art School, Sydney.
  • Andrea Steves is an artist, curator, researcher, and organizer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Andrea’s recent projects deal with museums and public history, monuments and memorials, and the complex legacies of the Cold War. Andrea collaborates with Timothy Furstnau as FICTILIS; together they cofounded the Museum of Capitalism, and edited the publication Museum of Capitalism (Inventory Press, 2017 and 2019) along with Rose Linke. Andrea's work with the New Mexico Downwinders is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts in Partnership with Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund.
  • Crunch Kefford is currently a primary school teacher based in Aotearoa. She has been organising in the climate justice and anti-nuclear struggles for over a decade. She prioritises getting out to lands affected and spending time on Country with Traditional Owners and friends. Crunch has been a long-term producer for the Radioactive Show, broadcast on 3CR and the national Community Radio Network, using audio to get the stories out.
  • Gem Romuld is the Australian Director for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, currently building community and political support for the nuclear weapon ban treaty. She has spent ten years organising in the Australian anti-nuclear movement, much of that alongside "Bladerunner Was Set In November 2019" fellow artists. Gem spent 6 years producing radio programs for 3CR Radio and the Community Radio Network.
  • Jessie Boylan is an artist based on Dja Dja Wurrung country in Central Victoria, Australia. Spanning a documentary-based practice, Boylan is interested in collaborative work, modes of affect and disruption and uses photography, video and sound to explore environmental, social and psychological disturbances. Boylan is a member of Lumina, an Australian photography collective, the Atomic Photographers Guild, an international group who aim to render visible all aspects of the nuclear age, and the Nuclear Futures/Alphaville Community Arts Project. Boylan is also a lecturer at La Trobe University in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia.
  • Tessa Rex is a documentary artist and video producer. Rex has exhibited films and photography in Sydney, New York and Berlin and in 2015 was a resident fellow at UnionDocs Centre for Documentary Art in New York. By day Rex lives a double life as Head of Video at Bauer Media.
  • Yul Scarf understands this epoch to be the CAPITALOCENE and wants to draw that very clearly. Yul is a proud Officer of the Department of Homo Affairs and after this show you may want to see them in a professional capacity as they perform Dr Ponk, your new Environmental-Humanitarian Relationship Counsellor.