In 2019 for ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE festival artist Yandell Walton, invited visitors to The Substation to experience her immersive, digital installation Shifting Surrounds. The exhibition explores human relationships with ecological and physical systems on the planet, by interrogating the shifting environments caused by climate change.​ Incorporating digital technology in the production and presentation of the works Walton highlights the current technological climate and raises questions about its effect on our rapidly changing world.

 

The exhibition explored the idea of earth entering a new geological age, the Anthropocene, a term developed by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen characterised by accelerating technological advancements, population growth and excessive consumption. Crutzen writes: “the environmental impact of population growth and economic development would suggest that humanity has left behind the Holocene (the time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or “ice age) and is now entering a new geological age.”

 

This major exhibition was developed by Yandell Walton through a series of on-site residencies in 2017/18 and the resulting work responds to the unique architecture of the building to interrogate the shifting environments caused by climate change. Video courtesy of James Arneman, Sunlander Media.

​​

Presented in collaboration with The Substation, Climarte and Centre for Projection Art. This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.