Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne. Photography by Andrew Curtis.

Termite Economies (Phase One) by Nicholas Mangan

As a starting point for this exhibition, Nicholas Mangan looks at historical research undertaken by the CSIRO into the activity of termites in the hope that the behaviour of these industrious insects would assist with the identification of gold deposits and lead to increased efficiency in gold exploration.

Mangan combines footage he filmed on location in WA, alongside archival video and table-mounted sculptures – elaborate 3D prints of re-imagined internal workings of termite mounds. Using a 3D printer, plaster and soil, Mangan has created models that hybridise mining infrastructure with termite architecture to form speculative termite mining infrastructures.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Alert to both history and science, Nicholas Mangan is a multi-disciplinary artist known for interrogating narratives embedded in a diverse range of objects. With a keen interest in the processes of forming meaning from objects, culture and natural phenomena, Mangan creates unnerving drawings, montages, sculptures and installations.

His work addresses a wide range of themes, including the ongoing impacts of colonialism, humanity’s fraught relationship with the natural environment, contemporary consumptive cultures and the complex dynamics of the global political economy.

Nicholas Mangan is represented by Sutton Gallery.

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