Artspace

rīvus

Jumana Emil Abboud (Palestine/England), Dineo Seshee Bopape (South Africa), Boral River (Bangladesh), Carolina Caycedo (Colombia/USA), Erin Coates (Australia), Cian Dayrit (Philippines), Jessie French (Australia), Joey Holder (England), Pushpa Kumari (India), Latent Community (Albania/Greece), Martuwarra River (Australia), National Committee of the Friends of Myall Creek Memorial and local First Nations Communities (on Gamilaroi/Gamilarray/Gomeroi Country, Australia), Wura-Natasha Ogunji (Nigeria/USA), Duke Riley (USA), and Teho Ropeyarn (Angkamuthi/Yadhaykana, Australia)

23rd Biennale of Sydney Curatorium

José Roca, Artistic Director; Paschal Daantos Berry (Head of Learning and Participation, Art Gallery of New South Wales); Anna Davis (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia); Hannah Donnelly (Producer, First Nations Programs, Information + Cultural Exchange) and Talia Linz (Curator, Artspace)

Exhibition dates
12 March–13 June 2022
Open daily 10am–5pm
with extended hours every Thursday 6–10 pm

Good Friday 15 April: CLOSED
Easter Saturday 16 April : 10am–5pm
Easter Sunday 17 April: CLOSED
Easter Monday 18 April: 10am–5pm

Free Entry

23rd Biennale of Sydney Artists' Party
Join us to celebrate the opening of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney presented by National Art School in partnership with Artspace.
When | Tuesday, 8 March, 6–10pm
Where | National Art School, 156 Forbes St, Darlinghurst, NSW, 2010

RSVP HERE

For more information about the Biennale participants, programs and other venues, visit the Biennale of Sydney website.

Left to Right: Carol McGregor with Adele Chapman-Burgess, Avril Chapman and the Community of the Myall Creek Gathering Cloak, Myall Creek Gathering Cloak, 2018 (detail). Courtesy the New England Regional Art Museum & the Myall Creek Gathering Cloak Community; Jumana Emil Abboud; Eyes wide open, 2018; Bdour and Qdour III, 2020; The Dig, 2015; A matter of taste, 2015; Lion Boy, 2015; Reclining II, 2018; Messenger Bird III, 2020, Messenger Bird IV, 2020, Wolf, 2020, Bdour and Qdour I, 2020; Waterfall I, 2015; Transformations: horse among wells (aka after Eugene D's Ovide), 2020; Anatomy I, 2012; Her contour (hand and eyes), 2018; and Messenger Bird I, 2020. Courtesy the artist. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Canada Council for the Arts. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Jumana Emil Abboud; Bdour and Qdour I, 2020; Waterfall I, 2015; Transformations: horse among wells (aka after Eugene D's Ovide), 2020; Anatomy I, 2012; Her contour (hand and eyes), 2018; Messenger Bird I, 2020; Reclining II, 2018; Cocoon, 2009; Messenger Bird II, 2020; Breaking Waves, 2018; The upper spring and the lower spring, 2020; and Ein al-Joz Bride, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Canada Council for the Arts. Wura-Natasha Ogunji; View from Atlantis, 2015; and Lagoons and Lagoons and Lagoons, 2021. Courtesy the artist & Fridman Gallery, New York. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Erin Coates, Metallic Water, 2020. Courtesy the artist. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney made possible with generous assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts and generous assistance from the Western Australian Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. Jumana Emil Abboud; Waterfall III, 2015; Eyes wide open, 2018; Bdour and Qdour III, 2020; The Dig, 2015; A matter of taste, 2015; Lion Boy, 2015; Reclining II, 2018; Messenger Bird III, 2020, Messenger Bird IV, 2020, Wolf, 2020, Bdour and Qdour I, 2020; Waterfall I, 2015; Transformations: horse among wells (aka after Eugene D's Ovide), 2020; Anatomy I, 2012; Her contour (hand and eyes), 2018; Messenger Bird I, 2020; Reclining II, 2018; Cocoon, 2009; Messenger Bird II, 2020; Breaking Waves, 2018; The upper spring and the lower spring, 2020; and Ein al-Joz Bride, 2016. Courtesy the artist. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Canada Council for the Arts. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Wura-Natasha Ogunji; View from Atlantis, 2015; and Lagoons and Lagoons and Lagoons, 2021. Courtesy the artist & Fridman Gallery, New York. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Wura-Natasha Ogunji; The proof, an undersea volcano, extraction, attraction, distraction, 2017; and Atlantic, 2017. Courtesy the artist & Fridman Gallery, New York. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Wura-Natasha Ogunji, The proof, an undersea volcano, extraction, attraction, distraction, 2017 (detail). Courtesy the artist & Fridman Gallery, New York. Erin Coates; Alluvium, 2020; Metallic Water, 2020; and from the series ‘Swan River Dolphin Bones’, 2020-2022. Courtesy the artist. Courtesy the Janet Holmes à Court Collection. Collection of the City of Melville. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney made possible with generous assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts and generous assistance from the Western Australian Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Carolina Caycedo, Serpent River Book and Serpent Table, 2017 (detail). Courtesy the artist. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from the UK/Australia Season Patrons Board, the British Council and the Australian Government as part of the UK/Australia Season. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Foreground: Carolina Caycedo, Serpent River Book and Serpent Table, 2017 (detail). Background: Yuma, or the Land of Friends, 2021. Courtesy the artist. Presentation at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from the UK/Australia Season Patrons Board, the British Council and the Australian Government as part of the UK/Australia Season. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Jessie French, A Matter of Matter – agaG1, 2022 (detail); and Growthcentrism - C15H18NO8, 2022 (detail). Courtesy the artist and Anaïs Lellouche. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from the Australia Council for the Arts and assistance from the Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative. The Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Jessie French, A Matter of Matter – agaG1, 2022 (detail); and Growthcentrism - C15H18NO8, 2022 (detail). Courtesy the artist and Anaïs Lellouche. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from the Australia Council for the Arts and assistance from the Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative. The Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Martuwarra River, Voice for the Martuwarra Fitzroy river, 2022. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Carol McGregor with Adele Chapman-Burgess, Avril Chapman and the Community of the Myall Creek Gathering Cloak, Myall Creek Gathering Cloak, 2018 (detail). Courtesy the New England Regional Art Museum & the Myall Creek Gathering Cloak Community. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Left to Right: Teho Ropeyarn, Athumu Paypa Adthinhuunamu (my birth certificate), 2022 (detail). Courtesy the artist & Onespace Gallery. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and with generous assistance from the Queensland Arts Showcase Program; Dineo Seshee Bopape, Lerato le le golo (la go hloka bo kantle) / A big Love (without an outside), 2022. Courtesy the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery; and Pushpa Kumari, Ganga Maiya (Mother Ganga), 2021 (detail). Courtesy the artist. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
Joey Holder, Abyssal Seeker (Demersal Zone), 2021 (detail). Courtesy the artist & Seventeen, London. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from the UK/Australia Season Patrons Board, the British Council and the Australian Government as part of the UK/Australia Season. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.

Overview

Rivers, wetlands and other salt and freshwater ecosystems feature in the 23rd Biennale of Sydney (2022), titled rīvus, as dynamic living systems with varying degrees of political agency. Rivers are the sediment of culture. They are givers of life, routes of communication and places of ritual, but also sewers and mass graves. They are witnesses and archives, our memory. They have also been co-opted as natural avenues for the colonial enterprise, becoming sites of violent conflict driven by greed, exploitation and the thirst to possess. Indeed, the Latin root rīvus, meaning a brook or stream, is also at the origin of the word ‘rivalry’.

Indigenous knowledges have long understood non-human entities as living ancestral beings with a right to life that must be protected. But only recently have animals, plants, mountains and bodies of water been granted legal personhood. If we could recognise them as individual beings, what might they say?

rīvus, presented at National Art School (NAS) in partnership with Artspace, is imagined as a subterranean river once buried that now resurfaces. Across three buildings participants explore displacement, erasure, impeded flows and stagnant waters. They guide us through submarine universes, both real and imagined. Language, song and storytelling are used to connect to the spirits of the land and waters. Marks made by the body call forth watery beings from the past and the future. On this fraught site, the deep well of history can no longer be contained and the desire for healing and reclamation are brought to the fore.