Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki & Olive Guardiani: Requiem in Power (RIP)

Requiem in Power (RIP) is a collaborative exhibition by Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki and Olive Guardiani. Grounded in material, ecological, and existential concerns, it brings together two neighbouring sites: the La Trobe Solar Farm and Preston Cemetery. One site converts sunlight into electricity, its panels angled toward net zero. The other holds death and mourning through gravestones, quiet, enduring forms embedded in the city.

The project considers how landscapes are shaped by industry and technology, while remaining bound to human ritual and mortality. Solar panels and gravestones sit as parallel structures of need. Together, they frame cycles of energy, memory, and transformation.

At the centre of the work is the clearing of mature trees to make way for the solar farm. Their absence lingers. It registers as a form of collective grief, extending the language of the cemetery beyond human life. Loss here is ecological and social, reshaping habitat, shade, and shared space.

The exhibition unfolds as a study of time and relation. Through sculpture, it traces the entanglement of human and more-than-human worlds.