(in collaboration with John Vella)
Heavy Metals Project. 15 January – 21 April, 2014. Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart
Curated by Kirsha Kaechele

materials: digital prints on archival photo rag paper, scientific glassware, pulverised, freeze-dried northern pacific sea stars, contaminated river water, river artefacts, live seagrass specimen

Photo credits: Peter Mathew

Sited in the cavernous MONA B1 storeroom crymeariver responds to the pipes, cables and conduits that comprise MONA’s service infrastructure. crymeariver reinterprets this matrix as a metaphor for the anthropogenic relationships that impact on the local Derwent river ecosystem, evolving a site of chemical, physical, social and political immersion.
The artists sourced domestic and industrial documents associated with water, siphoned artefacts from local river sites, and collaborated with estuarine and freshwater scientists to examine processes of bio-accumulation and sediment stabilisation. In combination these determine actual and hypothetical propositions for healing the Derwent’s heavy metal contamination.

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