I’m so grateful to QAGOMA for the opportunity to attend the opening weekend of Olafur Eliasson’s new exhibition, PRESENCE, in Brisbane last week.
I got to meet Olafur and interview him in Berlin back in May for a feature for Art Guide Australia’s Nov-Dec issue (out now) and it was a true, true career highlight. An expansive, freewheeling conversation that covered art, politics, care, institutions, climate catastrophes, uncertainty, collaboration and curiosity.
His studio is a four-storey former brewery in Prenzlauer Berg with different departments, studios, labs, libraries and kitchens. You absolutely get a sense of the scale of his thinking and his ambition. Fast-forward to now and to get to experience the exhibition conceived and curated with such relentless tenderness by Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow, is such a joy.
It’s full of invitations to wonder, to slow down, to be surprised and confused, to feel dis/embodied and unsteady and still. I think what I appreciate in the gentle spectacle of his work is that it’s not only an invitation for viewers to renegotiate their own understandings of space/place/time/light, it’s also a model for museums to re-think their positioning or understanding of museum visitors and how we could better invite our audiences to negotiate their own meaning of the work/world at hand.
QAGOMA
Until 12 July 2026
OTHER POSTS
- 2026
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2025
- Dec 17, 2025 Art Guide Australia: Field Notes. A Grassroots Approach to Public Art
- Dec 10, 2025 Olafur Eliasson: PRESENCE, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
- Oct 15, 2025 Art Guide Australia: Material curiosities, MCA Primavera
- Aug 28, 2025 Berlin trip: Connected Audiences Conference and some Art, Art, Art....
- Jul 2, 2025 Art Guide Australia: Studio profile of Monica Rani Rudhar
- May 5, 2025 ABC Arts: Lauren Brincat, When do I breathe?
- Apr 23, 2025 Art Guide Australia: Tina Havelock Stevens
- Apr 5, 2025 Connected Audiences Conference - Culture & Young People: What could possibly go wrong?
- Apr 4, 2025 ABC Arts: Thinking Together at Bundanon
- Apr 2, 2025 Collecting: Living with Art book launch
- Mar 7, 2025 Art Guide Australia: Mystery Road - Zanny Begg profile
- Feb 4, 2025 Art Guide Australia: Home Truths - feature story
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2024
- Dec 21, 2024 ABC Arts: Yayoi Kusama at NGV International
- Dec 2, 2024 Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published
- Nov 25, 2024 Art writing workshop with Woollahra Art Gallery
- Aug 3, 2024 Los Angeles art binge
- Mar 11, 2024 Biennale of Sydney opening & publication
- Mar 9, 2024 Melbourne work trip
- Feb 10, 2024 NGA National Young Writers Digital Residency launches
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2023
- Dec 6, 2023 Teen Program Symposium: Walker Art Center
- Jul 26, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald: Hustle Harder
- Jul 21, 2023 Publication day! Museum Teen Program How-To Kit
- Jul 20, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald: "A lesson in listening"
- Jul 4, 2023 Art Party at The Condensery
- Jun 13, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald: "These artists shared their work via post, now the paint is almost dry on the result."
- May 18, 2023 Panel talk: Australian Museums & Galleries Association National Conference
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2022
- Dec 1, 2022 Published outcomes - National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship
- Nov 29, 2022 ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
- Aug 28, 2022 The Condensery - Somerset Regional Art Gallery: new youth engagement project - 'Things I Want To Say'
- Aug 13, 2022 ABC Arts: Megan Cope is building a living, breathing artwork on Minjerribah
- Jul 21, 2022 Exhibition essay: Topographies of painting - Gregory Hodge, Sullivan + Strumpf
- Jul 2, 2022 ABC Arts: Richard Bell at documenta fifteen
- Feb 28, 2022 National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship
- Jan 5, 2022 Journal of Museum Education article: "Pockets of Resilience - the Digital Responses of Youth Collectives in Contemporary Art Museums During Lockdown."
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2021
- Nov 13, 2021 ABC Arts: Tarnanthi
- Oct 27, 2021 A New Approach: Enduring Foundations, Bold Ambitions
- Oct 16, 2021 Churchill Chat - Equity, Inclusion & the Impact of COVID-19 on the Arts
- Aug 24, 2021 Art Collector: Pull Focus interview with Abdul Abdullah & Abdul-Rahman Abdullah
- Aug 8, 2021 ABC Arts: Dean Cross and a spotlight on the work of Australia's regional galleries
- Jun 30, 2021 ABC Arts: Hilma af Klint - The Secret Paintings at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
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2020
- Oct 24, 2020 Raise your voice: young people in the arts
- Oct 1, 2020 Art Collector: Pull Focus interviews for Sydney Contemporary
- Sep 4, 2020 Recommended reading - Teen Vogue
- Jun 8, 2020 SAMAG Talk - Bringing it home: Innovation & Ideas from the Churchill Fellowship
- Jun 1, 2020 MCA GENEXT Goes Online
- May 23, 2020 Vale Frank Watters - Artlink magazine
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2019
- Nov 19, 2019 Churchill Fellowship Report - findings
- Aug 21, 2019 Upcoming SAMAG Panel - Youth arts: why we should care what young people think
- May 10, 2019 By young people for young people - A report on the impact of GENEXT at MCA Australia
- Feb 1, 2019 Art Collector Issue 87: 50 Things Collectors Should Know
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2018
- Nov 23, 2018 Artist texts: Clare Thackway
- Oct 29, 2018 Announcement of Churchill Fellowship 2018
- Sep 30, 2018 Frida Kahlo at the Victoria & Albert Museum
- Sep 7, 2018 Elizabeth Willing profile for Art Collector magazine
- Aug 2, 2018 Beyond Community Engagement: Transforming Dialogues in Art, Education and the Cultural Sphere
- Jun 21, 2018 Spotlight on MCA Young Guides
- Feb 1, 2018 Art Collector Issue 84: Undiscovered
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2017
- Aug 30, 2017 Skulptur Projecke Münster 2017
- Jul 26, 2017 Te Tuhi Talks
- Apr 2, 2017 New role: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
- Jan 19, 2017 Louise Paramor profile for Art Collector magazine, issue 78
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2016
- Dec 1, 2016 Craft Council UK – Make:Shift conference, Manchester, 10-11 Nov, 2016
- Oct 30, 2016 Alison Croggon on the arts funding crisis and the importance of criticism
- Apr 27, 2016 Lottie Consalvo: mid-fall, Alaska Projects
- Mar 18, 2016 20th Biennale of Sydney: The future is here it's just not evenly distributed
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2015
- Nov 22, 2015 Celeste Boursier-Mougenot at the NGV
- Sep 22, 2015 Educating People Like Us
- Aug 2, 2015 What It Means to be Me, Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo, 26 July 2015
- Jul 12, 2015 More Marina Magic
- Jul 12, 2015 Art Collector cover story
- Jun 25, 2015 Lessons learnt: Kaldor regional progress report
- May 5, 2015 Kaldor pilots regional engagement project
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2014
- Aug 21, 2014 Melbourne Art Fair 2014
- Jun 24, 2014 Fresh Faces Symposium: Art Gallery of New South Wales
- May 24, 2014 REVIEW: Sleepers Awake, MCA C3West Project, Bungaribee
- Feb 20, 2014 Kevin Chin profile for Art Collector magazine
- Feb 9, 2014 Artlink review: 21st Century Portraits
- Jan 12, 2014 REVIEW: Christian Boltanski, Chance, Carriageworks
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2013
- Sep 20, 2013 The problem with 'Australia'
- Sep 4, 2013 Margate: An away day and a visit to Turner Contemporary
- Jul 28, 2013 A round-up: Miles Aldridge, Somerset House; Katharina Fritsch, Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square; Michael Landy, ‘Saints Alive’, National Gallery
- Jul 21, 2013 Peckham weekends
- Jul 11, 2013 Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavik
- Jun 4, 2013 St Paul-de-Vence
- May 30, 2013 A visit to Paul Cezanne's studio
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2012
- Oct 30, 2012 REVIEW: DOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany
- Oct 28, 2012 Tino Sehgal, These Associations, Tate Modern, London
- Aug 4, 2012 Jeremy Deller, Sacrilege, Burgess Park, London
- Apr 14, 2012 REVIEW: Martin Creed, Sketch Nightclub, London
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2010
- Jul 19, 2010 Christian Boltanski, Les archives du coeur, Serpentine Gallery, London
- Jul 9, 2010 REVIEW: 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
- Jul 5, 2010 REVIEW: EXPOSED: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera, Tate Modern, London
- Jun 21, 2010 REVIEW: Sean Scully New Work, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
- Jun 14, 2010 Yinka Shonibare MBE, “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle”, Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square
- May 20, 2010 REVIEW: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Barbican Centre, London
- May 16, 2010 REVIEW: Decode: Digital Design Sensation, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
- May 9, 2010 REVIEW: Olafur Eliasson: Take Your Time, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
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2009
- Dec 1, 2009 REVIEW: Anish Kapoor, Royal Academy of Arts
- Mar 27, 2009 REVIEW: Mythologies, Haunch of Venison
- 2008