Artist Talk & Opening 5 – 7pm Friday 19 September
A Tremble, A Tug, A Telling is an immersive installation of moving image and sound that explores the complex entwinement between bodily materiality and nonhuman phenomena. The concept of this work is generated from a recent lived climatic catastrophe in which the audible sound of the Earths P wave caused intense fear, panic and vulnerability. I struggled to orient myself and experienced disjointed time as the outer nonhuman phenomena had perpetrated my inner world.
P Waves (Primary Waves) are seismic acoustic waves that hit faster than S waves (Secondary Waves), which are ground movement. Extremely low in frequency, not everyone hears or feels them. Certain people’s senses are more conducive, especially those who have experienced a quake before. Like when someone whispers your name, you have become attuned to hear it. P waves echo through bones and rock. They can wake you in fright.
Drawing on the weight of this embodied experience the work explores the struggle to understand changing landscapes. It questions how one moves forward through the realization of the erosion of a future memory. The personal experience of climate trauma and its subsequent impact on the psyche generates a portal for traversing cognitive dissonance and question beyond what we know, to unlearn, re-tune to uncover earth’s hidden resonances and transcend human/nonhuman separation.
This exhibition is supported by Regional Arts and Country Arts South Australia.
BIO
Born and raised in Aotearoa’s Mountain terrain Gail Hocking has a strong connection to the land and natural environments. Hocking’s research and artistic output centres on the relationship between human and nature or non-human beings, emphasising environmental concerns through a lens of empathy, intimacy, and vulnerability.
Hocking has exhibited widely, including; 2024 Drava Biennale Croatia, Koprivnica Art Museum, Osijek Museum of Fine Art, Art Gallery of Slavonski. Exhibition at Gallery CEKAO Zagreb, Croatia. Depot Artspace, Auckland; Gallery-Smith, Melbourne; Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery of Lisbon, Portugal; Museu Municipal de Penafiel, Portugal; Flinders Art Museum Adelaide.