Tim Riley Walsh - On Fire: Climage and Crisis

This week on Stacks On! Myf and Aleisha spoke to curator Tim Riley Walsh and artists Michael Candy and Dr Naomi Blacklock about their contributions to the Institute of Modern Art’s exhibition, ‘On Fire: Climate and Crisis’.

Centered on the aftermath of the Black Summer fires of 2019 and 2020, the exhibition profiles contemporary Queensland art in a time of significant ecological change. Environmental historian Stephen Pyne describes this era as the Pyrocene — the fire equivalent of an ice age - with Australia among the locations most keenly hit by its effects.

‘On Fire’ includes the work of fifteen emerging and established Queensland Artists and looks to the past, present, and future of the Pyrocene. The exhibition foregrounds the damaging legacies of colonialism, before examining how artists visualize connection and disconnection with the environment. It also explores fire’s capacity for rejuvenation, guided by the Indigenous cultural burning movement. The exhibition concludes with artistic reflections on speculative futures.