Adam Norton, Autonomous Rescue Craft 1, 2 and 3, 2006. Found suitcases, paddles, mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy: the artist and Galerie pompom, Sydney.

The title of Adam Norton’s exhibition, A Handbook for the Apocalypse, contextualises it as a how-to guide for surviving catastrophic situations. Norton’s practice has consistently examined how to refit everyday material into an arsenal of tools with which to survive apocalyptic, extraordinary circumstances. In a time of general global crisis, his explorations feel all the more relevant.

Despite the apocalyptic premise, Norton’s sense of humour infects the work throughout. There are water-rescue crafts built from suitcases and lawn chairs, a survival pod fitted into an old wardrobe, and camouflage made from domestic fabrics designed to blend into the landscape. While the works may not literally protect the user from apocalyptic conditions, they arm against something all the more important – the loss of humour and joy in the face of doom-laden circumstances.

Taking Norton’s works together from the last two decades allows them to be examined as a whole; a multitude of paths through increasingly dire circumstances – both as survival tools and manifestations of the joy and humour that will be required to push through crises that have become the new global norm.

– excerpt from exhibition essay by Harry de Vries

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