News
11 February, 2024
New exhibitions open at the Condensery
Opening this month, The Condensery will present two exhibitions by internationally acclaimed artists Sancintya Mohini Simpson and the husband-and-wife duo Miguel Aquilizan and Jessica Dorizac.
Sancintya Mohini Simpson’s exhibition, ām / ammā / mā maram, showcases paintings, sculpture, poetry, and scent that give voice to the stories of indentured Indian women.
The title borrows from three languages spoken across India: ām means mango in Hindi, ammā is a term for mother throughout India, and mā maram is mango tree in Tamil.
Simpson is a first-generation Australian and descendant of labourers sent from the port of Madras (now Chennai), India, to work on sugar plantations in the British colony of Natal, South Africa (now KwaZulu-Natal) between 1863 and 1911.
This exciting presentation at The Condensery follows the exhibition’s debut at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth.
ām / ammā / mā maram builds upon Simpson’s recent presentations at the Tarrawarra Biennial 2023; Savvy Contemporary, Berlin; and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney.
The Condensery, a former condensed milk factory that relied on imported sugar from 1898, offers new context for Simpson’s global body of work, which responds to silences in historical records and underscores the need to reconsider the past as a step towards reconciliation.
Opening concurrently at The Condensery is the exhibition Pilgrimage: Remote Animism & Ornamental Displacements, featuring work by Aquilizan and Dorizac.
In their Pilgrimage series, Aquilizan and Dorizac explore interconnected themes of identity, globalisation, culture, colonisation, and resistance through a playful sculptural installation.
Located in The Condensery’s Bomb Shelter, this iteration is a new body of work produced in Australia, since Aquilizan and Dorizac have returned from living and working in the Philippines.
Connecting to the history of The Condensery’s Bomb Shelter as a place designed to protect and store information, Pilgrimage: Remote Animism & Ornamental Displacements serves as a repository for the experiences and speculations of two Filipino Australian artists sharing a life together.
Both exhibitions will open on Saturday, February 24.
