Encountering the extinction line: how art can help us re-imagine and bear witness to climate futures
School of Art & Design
Art that’s culturally aware and connected to place can influence our climate-change trajectory, says a researcher from ʹڲƱ Arts, Design & Architecture.
A new exhibition at ʹڲƱ Galleries examines how relationships with place and understandings of geologic evolution inform our climate futures. Lithic Bodies by Associate Professor Bianca Hester from ʹڲƱ’s School of Art & Design engages with the ‘extinction line’, part of which is visible at the base of the Illawarra escarpment, south of Sydney.
The extinction line marks the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geological periods, around 252 million years ago. It bears witness to the most devastating mass extinction event in Earth’s history, the cause of which remains unclear, but thought to be .
Geoscientists believe this geological history, now embedded in the Illawarra, offers for today’s , says A/Prof. Hester. “Lithic Bodies explores a narrative of planetary change registered in fossil and rock in relationship with the present ecological moment.”
A vast vertical rock face of the escarpment reveals the extinction horizon, located between the Bulli coal seam and the Coal Cliff sandstone. The coal measures deposited at the end of the Permian period sit below a ‘dead zone’ which lacks organic matter. This is due to a sudden dying-off of vegetation during the extinction event.
The dead-zone represents a devastated landscape ravaged by flooding and wildfire. “These events of fire and flood resonate with the current crisis,” says the , and practice-based researcher. “The dead zone of times past is a useful metaphorical figure, demonstrating extinction outcomes associated with our fossil-fuelled society.”
Lithic Bodies integrates sculpture, video, text and screen-printed images, as well as public walks in a provocative exploration of environmental histories interconnected with colonial inheritance. It engages with the extinction line as a conceptual and material loop between epochs.
“Through our , metabolising the fossilised energy embedded in remains of paleo-environments,” she says.
“Our reliance on extraction, embedded in European colonisation, impacts present-day carbon cycles, which we know has led to climate change. This is happening within the context of .”
Lithic Bodies promotes the need for urgent discussions about the climate crisis, resource extraction and conservation in Australia. “By leveraging the aesthetic capacity of practice-led research, we can contribute to a transformation of the habits and narratives that shape our relationships with non-human life, now and in the future.”
The exhibition is the latest in a body of work that investigates the material conditions of a fossil-fuelled society. A/Prof. Hester engages with geoscience experts, libraries and museums, such as the Australian Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the , as well as local institutions, such as the Clifton School of Arts, while working in dialogue with First Nations mentors.
“Art/science partnerships can enable greater public outreach and understanding of the interactions between human activity, geology and ecology,” she says.
She undertakes situated fieldwork (connected to specific time/place contexts), as well as engaging with paleo-botanical fossils and other early life specimens associated with specific sites to produce alternative geological records. Her work, (2021) explores the material and social histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s volcanic terrain, generating an alternative map of the city.
The multimedia video, sculptural art and collective walk, developed during multiple residencies, focus on the environmental impacts of extraction since colonisation across diverse sites. The work was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art and acquired for its permanent collection.
The project, and its precursor (2015), involved multi-partner collaborations, including with earth scientists and vulcanologists from Auckland University, Māori researchers, academics and students at Auckland University of Technology, artists from Public Share collective, and community groups. She explores the consultation and creative process in her book (2021).