Living in the Ruins of the Twentieth Century, UTS Gallery, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
16 April – 17 May 2013

Living in the Ruins of the Twentieth Century is a celebration of curiosity through the profound and the mundane.Presenting a vision of the twentieth century as a history of false starts, obsolete technologies, and unrealised utopias, “Living in the Ruins” is an archaeological dig into the material culture that shapes our present. In association with Cabinet, curators Adam Jasper and Holly Williams draw together objects from art, science, and ethnography in an investigation of the ruins, remnants, and ill-fated prototypes that defined a century already far enough in the past to be foreign to us, but close enough that we still have no fitting monuments for it.

“Living in the Ruins” creates a contemporary Wunderkammer that traverses diverse themes from islands to explosions and giant spheres. The exhibition will be anchored by a reading room of Cabinet publications (the only complete collection in Australia) and will be accompanied by a print and online project developed by Zoe Sadokierski and a colloquium on post-disciplinary curation facilitated by Lizzie Muller.

The exhibition combines artefacts from the Macleay Museum and the University of Sydney, the Museum of Old and New Art, the Westpac Archives and the Powerhouse Museum with articles from Cabinet and works by Australian and International artists.

With artworks by Daniel Knorr, Patrick Pound, Gianni Motti, Hany Armanious, Maria Friberg , Roman Signer, Sarah Pickering, Nicholas Mangan, Vicky Browne, the Institute of Critical Zoologists, Jaki Middleton & David Lawrey, David Haines & Joyce Hinterding, Michael Stevenson, Alex Gawronski, Nadia Wagner, Matthew Shannon, Lillian O’Neil and others.

Supported by The Centre For Contemporary Design Practice

livingintheruins.net

art.uts.edu.au/gallery