We invite you to join On Fire: Climate & Crisis curator Tim Riley Walsh to celebrate the launch of the accompanying publication followed by panel discussion titled Architecture and Design in the Pyrocene.

The publication features newly commissioned texts from Amelia Barikin, Shannon Brett, Chari Larsson, Kevin O’Brien, Rachel O’Reilly, and Tim Riley Walsh. Contextualising the exhibition and the work of its fifteen featured artists, this publication looks to the past, present, and future via colonialism’s legacies, fire’s cultural relativity, and art’s insights in a troubled era.

A panel discussion will address the emergence of what fire historian Stephen Pyne calls the Pyrocene—the fire equivalent of an ice age—and how Queensland architecture and design face a critical moment of reflection. How should buildings function and act in an era defined by overlapping crises?

This discussion calls into question the colonial legacy of permanent settlement in the present, in a moral, legal, and practical sense, particularly as an increasingly volatile environment emphasises a need for impermanent and decolonised modes of living.

Join transdisciplinary design academic Liz Brogden, art historian Andrew McNamara, architect/academic Kevin O’Brien, and panel host Susan Best, to discuss: should our future buildings and cities be fire-resistant, -resilient, or -accepting?

Read more here.

Image: Anne Wallace, 'Fire in the Hills', 2019, oil on linen, 61.4 x 92 cm. Collection of Philip Leeson and Lee Erickson, Canberra. Courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney.

This is a COVID Safe Event. Please maintain social distancing and stay home if:

i. You are unwell.

ii. You have been in close contact with a person who is positive for COVID-19.

iii. You are positive for COVID-19.

iv. You have travelled overseas or to a declared COVID-19 Hotspot in the previous14 days.