26 June -
15 August 2021
Gertrude Contemporary
21-31 High Street, Preston SouthInitiated in 2001, the Octopus series of exhibitions supports ambitious curatorial practice, through engaging an invited curator annually to develop a project that draws upon their research interests and provides a platform for new forms of exhibition making. In 2021, Gertrude was delighted to work with Tim Riley Walsh, art historian and curator, as well as the organisation’s current Curator in Residence.
Octopus 21: On Fire was an iteration of Riley Walsh’s exhibition and publication project On Fire: Climate and Crisis presented at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. Profiling contemporary Queensland art in a time of dramatic ecological change and planetary dysphoria, the exhibition looked via an incendiary lens at climate threat in QLD, its relatedness to the deep impacts of settler colonialism and extractivism on the local environment, and its articulation through visual culture.
