The 8th Day is a reflective, immersive and contrasting multi-modal exhibition that draws on the past five years of works by Palestinian-Australian artist Lux Eterna. It showcases contemporary ink drawings of gold gilt trees along with a triple channel dance video work.
Audiences are taken on journeys of various rhythms and bold aesthetics, through large scale immersive dance visions and imagined feminist cosmologies at Lake Mungo, and through a gallery of reflective, yet meditatively mapped drawings of trees from this land.
The 8th Day emerges between the footholds of walking, dancing, learning about 100,000 years old human existence, imagination and sensitive embodied practices. It includes provocations around how we gather to dream, author and step into cosmographically resonant and life-affirming worlds.
The foundations of the exhibition are dropping into a place, creating within the context of community, and privileging our more-than-human kin over long durations. The exhibition is also richly underscored by old and new relationships and stories. It considers the gravitas of ancient cultures and looks at how the stories we tell can shape our realities.
The 8th Day involves ongoing collaboration that primarily acknowledges the traditional Barkindji, Mutthi Mutthi and Ngiyampaa First Peoples of the Willandra Lakes Region of NSW. It celebrates their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. Respects are paid to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters.
The 8th Day Exhibition details
Artist: Lux Eterna
Exhibition dates: Thursday 10 September – Saturday 10 October
Opening hours: Wednesdays to Saturdays, 11am to 3pm
Cost: Free - no bookings required
About Lux
Lux Eterna is a Palestinian-Australian inter-disciplinary artist working across forms of performance, dance, drawing and lens media. His work is underpinned by practices of embodied sensitivities, mainly invoked through dance and desert based mystic experiences. She asks how such methods may be deployed as technological tools for our post-human futures.
Her recent focus is on creating process-driven work that is pro-social and guided by land-informed spiritual ecologies. She is curious about how we may map alternate cosmographies and author our approaching realities through our collective imagination and ritualised chorus work, tethering communities and animistic kinships with the more-than-human.
Aunty Tanya Charles
Aunty Tanya Charles joins Lux for the hands-on workshops. She is a Mutthi Mutthi Elder and Mungo National Park Discovery Ranger whose connection to the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Region spans countless generations. Tending the outdoor ancient museum of her ancestors', she protects, records and teaches her peoples' land and stories, their technologies and ways of living to Lake Mungo's visitors, who depart profoundly changed.
Public Program Details
Contact
For more information, contact the gallery on 8757 9027 or email granvillecentreartgallery@cumberland.nsw.gov.au
