Earth Refuge 3000
2022-23Dual channel video 5:36 mins, speculative performance and gallery installation.
Artist: Merinda Davies
Filmmaker: Mick Angus
Composer: Matt Cornell
Commissioned by Moreton Bay Regional Galleries for Get Me Out! a group exhibition exploring futures thinking curated by Hannah Williamson.
Set in the year 3000, Earth Refuge 3000 imagines a future where the planet has collapsed, and outside environments are inhospitable to humans. The plinth in the middle of the room holds a vessel containing soil collected from Kabi Kabi Country. Partnered with the sculpture is an infomercial explaining how to interact with the vessel. An edition of 100 sample packs of archival soils are offered to visitors as an invitation to take the scent of the earth home to you sleep station.
Davies prompts us to consider what will happen to us after we lose our connection to the natural environment. What will we miss mos from our planet? How will we remember this place? Earth Refuge 3000 is both an imagination of our future and a reflection of our current state.
To watch the Earth Refuge 3000 dual channel video work get in touch
Wake up - smell the earth - come home: earth-(re)fuge-3000
On waking, take a dropper full of creek water, place it into the top of the earth-(re)fuge-3000,
Atomise the chamber,
Breathe in, as you breathe in imagine you are breathing out,
Take rest in your body and the body of the earth.
Find refuge in this distant connection back to solid ground.
Archival soils and creek water collected from Kabi Kabi land (26°40’19.1“S, 153°02’52.4“E) pre-fallout during March 2055.
Object made from hand blown glass.
suffix: -fuge
- expelling or dispelling either a specified thing or in a specified way.
noun: refuge
1. shelter or protection from danger or distress
2. a place that provides shelter or protection
3. something to which one has recourse in difficulty