Variable depth, shallow water is an exhibition of new work by Izabela Pluta, a Polish-born, Australian-based artist, who uses photography to interpret and re-conceptualise the role performed by images today. Visiting the recently-fallen sea stack Dwerja, also known as The Azure Window, on the island of Gozo, Pluta was captivated by what was one of the world’s most spectacular expressions of geological time. Dwejra, an underwater debris of limestone rock – originally 28-metres tall – now lies about 12 meters below sea level.
Drawing on the reflexivity of the photographic medium, Pluta uses images, video, objects and sound. The installation’s key material includes corrupted data, filmed using a drone lost at sea and subsequently retrieved. Inspired by Dwerja, the concept of deep time, the instantaneous moment of change, and informed by her own passage as a migrant to Australia, the work investigates the uncertainty of location.
Variable depth, shallow water brings together disparate elements comprising handmade contact negatives of unhinged atlases, faux-artefacts cast in bronze from the depths of where the Pacific Ocean and East China Sea meet, footage from the vast Australian landscape, and neon components that implode in on themselves. This is the first time the artist has exhibited in Malta.
PUBLIC PROGRAMME
Panel discussion (online) 10 March
With Moderator, Ranier Fsadni, and panel Izabela Pluta, Jon Banthorpe, and Margerita Pulè.
Film screening at Spazju Kreattiv cinema:
Powers of Ten, by Charles & Ray Eames
Shadow Sites II, by Jananne Al-Ani
Constantly changing ecosystems narrative, by Raquel Ormella
As Close As_navigationalfailure, by Lynne Roberts-Goodwin
Drowned World, by Ben Thorp Brown
This video-screening programme draws together on an array of artistic approaches that represent the landscape from above and asks how these dramatic changes in perspective prompt us to rethink our perception of the world. Referencing satellite and drones, many of these works draw out how warfare is one of the main drivers of the growing sophistication of mapping technology. Cartography changes our perception of a place, we can read the landscape as teeming with information or reduced to abstraction. While the increasing sophistication of surveillance technology can give us a sense of control over our place in the world, the sense of freefall that permeates the program reminds us of our precarious footing on here on Earth.
The film programme has been curated in collaboration with Ellie Buttrose, Curator, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Australia, the exhibition curators Francesca Manigon and Nicole Bearman, and artist, Izabela Pluta.
Izabela Pluta is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney.
This exhibition has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and supported by a UNSW Art & Design Faculty Research Grant.
Variable depth, shallow water, Spazju Kreattiv
Izabela Pluta
