We’re thrilled to present the a newly commissioned large-scale installation, Whale Fall, by Anna May Kirk in our Project Space within our third annual BETTER NATURE Art + Events program.

Whale Fall connects the vastness of the sea with the unbound limitlessness of the subconscious. This sculptural work suggests a transformation of the oceans’ symbolic power in a time of environmental change, asking how we can continue to delight in the idea of the sea as a sublime and dreamlike space, when this environ is undergoing destructive change. Taking the form of a large-scale chandelier-like sculpture, the work is composed of hundreds of hand-blown glass forms individually sealed with Pacific ocean water descending from an organic steel frame. The form of the work falls from ceiling to floor referencing a “whale fall”. A whale fall occurs when a whale dies at sea, and as it slowly falls into the darkness of the ocean floor new ecosystems form and are sustained around its body. Through this lens, Kirk suggests falling can be a generative act of transformation in response to climate disaster.

Anna May Kirk is an multi-disciplinary artist, curator and creative producer based on Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia. Kirk makes tangible the spectral nature of Anthropogenic climate change through sculpture, sensory installations and film. From shifts in planetary weather patterns to microscopic chemical changes, her immersive works grapple with the many processes of environmental transformation that act upon temporal and geographic scales beyond the human sensorium. Kirk embeds the materiality of climate change within her works, creating ‘living sculptures’ with materials that are porous to their changing landscapes.