I acknowledge and pay respect to custodians – past present and emerging – on sovereign Dharawal Wodi Wodi land where I live and conduct this creative practice. I extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As a beneficiary of a colonial continuum and the resulting disproportionate distribution of wealth across this continent – I Pay the Rent – and invite you to do so too.

Bianca Hester

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Bianca Hester’s practice explores entanglements of materiality, place and the forces of ecological change across timescales, producing expansive artworks that cultivate new modes of attentive, relational embodiment amid the pressures of climate crisis.

Recent work investigates interconnections between colonial inheritance, extraction, environmental crisis, evolution and extinction across the Australian continent. Employing situational methodologies – she combines experimental fieldwork, engaging the geologic record, site-writing, sculptural production, collaboration and performed actions – to develop projects that unpack the material conditions of specific places. This results in an expansive form of public art unfolding in dialogue with a range of interlocutors and participants.

Sandstone (2020)

PUBLICATION DATE
2020

PUBLICATION DETAILS
Bianca Hester, 2020, Sandstone.
Hobart: A Published Event.
ISBN: 978-0-6484927-6-4
96 pages

SERIES
Lost Rocks

CURATED
Justy Phillips and Margaret Westwood

FULL COPY
Download here

Millions of years of evolution buried deep within the double helix of my body’s biologic fabric were on display during those few raucous hours. Rock enveloped in reptile embedded in mammal. Moan.

Sandstone is a book of creative non-fiction based upon situated encounters with Sydney Basin’s dominant geologic material. The writing explores sandstone’s liveliness through textual fragments that consider entanglements between mammalian and geologic life. Attention is placed upon dust, mining, gestation, archives, weather, social histories, breathing, evolution and extinction – amongst other events. These fragments explore the myriad geo-social histories ingrained in sandstone in the time of the Anthropocene to propose a practice-led form of situated geo-ethics.

Anthropogenic, Archive, Basalt, Brick, Bronze, Colonial continuums, Coal, Concrete, Cosmic, Deep time, Digging, Dirt, Dust, Embodiment, Extractivism, Extinctions, Floor, Fossil, Fragment, Geologies, Groundwork, Installation, Materiality, Object, People, Performance, Permian, Place, Plant life, Process, Meteorite, Moving, Moving image, Rubbings, Sandstone, Sculpture, Singular objects, Site, Sociality, Steel, Still image, Textual, Triassic, Walking, Wall.