LEVIATHAN, curated by Anaïs Lellouche, features an intergenerational group of artists, many showing for the first time in Australia. Participating artists include: Ali Banisadr (b. 1976, Iran), Chioma Ebinama (b. 1988, United States), Jessie French (b. 1988, Australia), Monira Al Qadiri (b. 1983, Senegal), Tamara Al Samerraei (b. 1977, Kuwait), Theo Triantafyllidis (b. 1998, Greece), Frank Walter (b.1926 – d.2009, Antigua).

LEVIATHAN is an unknown force that lies in the abyss. For artists, fearless by nature, it also symbolises the power of creation. Their visions conjure and respond to the forces that lie in the underbelly of the earth. Artists featured in the exhibition draw on the power of water as a transformative medium through three main thematic threads: the Leviathan as a mythical force and catalyst for artistic imagination; art’s agency in response to the climate crisis through change making media; and the experience of sea journeys, migration, water rights, and their psychological impact. LEVIATHAN offers a site for reflection on the sea, and other bodies of water, as political and economic territories, and how we are moved by these collective, yet highly, contested realms. The exhibition gathers artists who have been on migratory journeys across the land and seas. Some have found places of solace; others got lost on the voyage, their minds and creations altered forever. The works gathered speak of the power and fragility of our existence, tossed by waves.

LEVIATHAN also opens a dialogue between art and the spoken word, rooted in key texts by philosophers, political figures and poets: Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) best known for his 1651 book “Leviathan”; Victor Hugo (1802–1885), and Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) whose passionate ideas about justice, the state and artistic power, resound in contemporary practice.

There are still places today where the water runs free. These offer spaces of hope, brimming with abundance, contrary to the other reality of scarcity and angst associated with our most precious resource. The artists in the show take on a similar agency when thinking about water as a material in which to create and have an impact in the world. Drawing from imagination and research, their work invites us to dive into a transformative experience.

This is art, and this too is reality.