In response to our time of ecological crisis, BETTER NATURE is an annual program of art and events that embraces the complex entanglement between human and non-human worlds. Each year, BETTER NATURE will explore different ecological ideas from a more-than-human perspective, challenging our prevailing human-centric paradigm to create moments of collective clarity and hope.

In 2023, BETTER NATURE turns its attention to the world beneath our feet through the theme Earthen, with a curated group show that forms a central node within an expansive network of events, programs and activations. Our earliest stories are of the transfiguration of humans from earth, dirt animated into bodies.

From these earthly origins, humanity has become a geological force in its own right, transforming the planet’s material nature by sculpting its surface at epic scales and imprinting its effects upon the micro elements of organism, sediment and soil. Situated against this current geological era of the Anthropocene, Earthen reflects on humanity’s fundamental and entangled relationship with earth, bringing together creative practices from across Australia to create a ‘compost’ of ideas. These artists engage earth as a living and generative co-entity, alive with agency and capable of exchange and communication. Descending into the sediment, Earthen draws out the rich inter-relationships between earthly matter, humans and other species – between, among, together. Through artistic processes that transform, transmute, impress and uncover dialogue, the artists ask that we pause to notice, listen, care and attend to the learnings embedded beneath, inviting relational modes of being that are grounded in mutual support.