Opening Celebration: A river that flows both ways

Located in Adelaide’s iconic Lion Arts Centre precinct, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) is South Australia’s leading independent contemporary visual arts organisation, proudly supporting artists to develop and present work on Kaurna Yarta (Kaurna Country).

Adelaide Contemporary Experimental

The opening celebration for 'A river that flows both ways: Selected works from the 23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus'.

Celebrate the opening of A river that flows both ways: Selected works from the 23rd Biennale of Sydney: rīvus.Doors open at 5.30pm. Speeches start at 6.15pm.Our bar will be stocked by our sponsors Charlotte Dalton Wines and Bowden Brewing.rīvus publication, A Glossary of Water (edited by José Roca and Juan Francisco Salazar), will be available to purchase at the event.P﻿lease contact grace@ace.gallery if you require an Auslan interpreter. Inspired by rivers that flow both ways, ACE has partnered with the Biennale of Sydney to present a local response to the 23rd Biennale, titled rīvus (Latin for “stream”). Dedicated to nature and water-based ecologies, rīvus tackles many timely environmental themes including climate change and the effect of colonisation on First Peoples’ custodianship of ecosystems. Indigenous knowledges have long understood non-human entities as living ancestral beings with a right to life that must be protected. But only recently have animals, plants, mountains and bodies of water been granted legal personhood. If we can recognise them as individual beings, what might they say?This group presentation will feature work by Aluaiy Kaumakan (Paiwan Nation), Yuko Mohri (Japan), Imhathai Suwatthanasilp (Thailand), and Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi (Tonga), alongside the river voice of the Murrundi / Murray River.This group presentation will feature work by Aluaiy Kaumakan (Paiwan Nation), Yuko Mohri (Japan), Imhathai Suwatthanasilp (Thailand), and Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi (Tonga), alongside the river voice of the Murrundi / Murray River.Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi’s suspended installation, Haukulasi (1995-2021), uses the traditional Tongan form of binding or lashing known as lalava, which is historically used in the construction of houses around the Pacific, and takes the form of the double helix of DNA, the blueprint for life, as well as with constellations in the night sky that guide navigation.Imhathai Suwattanasilp’s works Plankton, Cosmos and Virus (2022), contain hundreds of small objects made from human hair, fish scales and moth wings, representing plankton, stars and viruses. The artist presents these tiny lifeforms against vast backdrops signifying the ocean, sky and our world, to present us with a different way of looking at our relationship to the world around us.Yuko Mohri’s kinetic sculptures use reconfigured everyday objects and machine parts to highlight various facets coming from the encounter between objects and invisible energies such as magnetism, gravity, wind, or light. She also shows a series of photographs titled Moré Moré Tokyo (Leaky Tokyo) : Fieldwork (2009–2021), featuring makeshift water repairs found at train and subway stations across metropolitan Tokyo. Mohri began the series in 2009, when she noticed how station agents were creatively combining everyday objects and materials such as umbrellas, bags, water bottles, buckets, and plastic sheeting to redirect the flow of groundwater leaking through the municipal infrastructure.  Aluaiy Kaumakan belongs to a leading noble family of the Paiwan Nation from the Paridrayan Community of Pingtung County in southern Taiwan, and her textile sculpture, Semasipu - Remembering Our Intimacies (2021-2022), uses the Paiwan practice of lemikalik to weave in concentric circles, intertwining memories of tribal nobility.The final participant in the exhibition is the Murrundi / Murray River, which includes the Kurangk (Coorong), Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth region – one of Australia’s most important wetland areas. For José Roca an important part of making an exhibition exploring water was to invite selected rivers to become ‘participants’ in it: “The rivers will be represented by ancestral custodians or contemporary custodians that will speak on their behalf,” Roca says. To this end, ACE has collaborated with Clyde Rigney Jnr (Ngarrindjeri) and Change Media to speak on the Murrundi’s behalf in the local version of this significant international project.Please note that the exhibition is open to the public from Saturday 4 February.

Feature Image: Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi, 'Haukulasi', 1995–2021 (detail). Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from Creative New Zealand. Photo by Document Photography.
I﻿mage 1: Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, 'Star', 2021; Plankton, 2021; and Virus, 2021. Courtesy the artist. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from the Australia-ASEAN Council and assistance from the Inner West Council. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Photography: Document Photography.
I﻿mage 2: Aluaiy Kaumakan, 'Semasipu - Remembering Our Intimacies' (2021-2022). Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Photography: Document Photography. Courtesy the artist, Project Fulfill Art Space &amp; Mother’s Tank Station Ltd.
I﻿mage 3: Yuko Mohri, 'Moré Moré Tokyo (Leaky Tokyo)': Fieldwork, 2009–2021. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from the Commonwealth through the Australia - Japan Foundation, which is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Japan Foundation, Sydney, the Pola Art Foundation and the Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation and assistance from the Nomura Foundation.Courtesy the artist &amp; Akio Nagasawa. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Photography: Document Photography.
Co-commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, Adelaide, Australia, with generous support from the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.

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Opening Celebration: A river that flows both ways

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