Lithic Bodies

Bianca Hester's practice investigates the material and geologic conditions of contested sites across the continent. Her situated mode of working responds to the temporal, social, and environmental intersections of location, acknowledges the continuities of sovereignty, and reckons with the ongoing colonial legacies of extraction. 'Lithic Bodies' is a long-term project developed in the Illawarra coastal region, where Hester has lived since 2018. This exhibition explores environmental entanglements surrounding the Permian-Triassic 'extinction line' present across the Sydney Basin and visible at the base of the Illawarra Escarpment—the greatest mass extinction 252 million years ago when the Australian continent was part of Gondwana. The line bears witness to climate change in deep time and resonates with the current environmental crisis. 'Lithic Bodies' assembles processes, materials, and narratives generated in response to the extinction line. The installation features sculpture, image, and video made in relation to the terrains of the Illawarra, as well as geologic artefacts from the palaeobotanical archives of the Australian Museum. Hester explores ways to attune to the geologic conditions of life and our indebtedness to the non-human, contending with the instability of thought and material at the close of the Holocene.