Stilled
30 November 2022 - 8 January 2023
Belinda Piggott, Stilled
For eons people have gazed above, cherishing the beauty of celestial bodies, the momentary drama of shooting stars, the spectacle of luminous comet tails. There are myriad interpretations of Earth’s place within the cosmos including myth, fortune telling, navigation.
More recently the attraction is more pragmatic. As earth’s resources deplete, eyes turn to the wilderness above to value its abundance of minerals. Stilled is a series of sculptural works that contemplate the shift in cosmic power from spiritual to economic. Some suggest constellations, others consider remnants of mining operations circulating, colliding, creating new, amorphous bodies.
Technology being developed to harvest space ores has tremendous potential, however, what are the potential consequences of mining the cosmos, environmentally, politically, socially? What have we learned from the consequences of extraction on earth?
The evocative soundtrack that accompanies the exhibition has been mixed by Paul Salty Brincat from NASA recordings.
Belinda Piggott lives and works on the unceded land of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation, Sydney. Through her practice she explores ideas and issues through research, experimentation, collaboration and conversation. The subject of her work emerges from the nexus of nature and technology, amazed at the tenacity of nature and how it emerges, in some form, despite the harm we inflict through our actions.
Her first solo exhibition, Constructed Forest, was held at Laneway Art Space, St Kilda in 2018. Over the last 10 years her work has been in a number of group shows and selected as a finalist in art prizes including 2022 Deakin Small Sculpture Award, 2022 & 2019 North Sydney Art Prize, 2022 & 2021 Gosford Art Prize, 2021 Klytie Pate Award and 2020 Little Things Art Prize (highly commended). Collaborative projects include Conversations 2012, Sea Worriers 2021, Eden Unearthed 2022 (with Mary van den Berk). In 2021, (with Helen Earl), she won the Northern Beaches Environmental Art & Design award for sculpture.