Installation view, Charlie Kinross. Courtesy: the artist and Manningham Art Gallery.

Taking its name from the unofficial description of the present day epoch which has seen human activity dramatically impact the earth’s climate and ecology, this exhibition is the expression of four artists’ efforts to record, reflect upon and potentially enact change in how humanity views and interacts with the world.

Shifting the Anthropocene features the work of Lesley Duxbury, Ruth Johnstone, Rosie Weiss and Stephen Wickham, who have variously photographed underwater ecosystems and stunning 400 year old eucalypts, and collected and drawn remnants of plants destroyed by bushfire, amongst other creative acts.

The works are descriptions of the immediate and personal effects of climate change as the artists have witnessed them. They also pivot to celebrate instances where individuals and communities have saved endangered species or enacted changes in environment laws through collective effort, thereby giving a hopeful and positive tenor to the exhibition overall.