Rachel O’Reilly: The Gas Imaginary

Rachel O’Reilly is an artist, poet, critic, independent curator and researcher whose practice addresses relationships between art, situated cultural politics, and feminist political economy.

In conjunction with 'Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes', this solo presentation focuses on O’Reilly’s ongoing project 'The Gas Imaginary' which uses poetry, drawing, film and public lectures to address the install of unconventional gas (fracking) investments in settler colonial space.

Initiated in 2013, the project features works produced in collaboration with architectural group Pa.LaC.E (Valle Medina and Benjamin Reynolds), artist Rodrigo Hernandez, and in dialogue with Gooreng Gooreng elders and frontline activists.

Rachel O’Reilly with Pa.LaC.E (Valle Medina & Benjamin Reynolds) and Rodrigo Hernandez, The Gas Imaginary, Series 1 2014 and The Gas Imaginary, Series 2 (Gladstone, Post-pastoral) 2016. Installation view, 'The Gas Imaginary', UNSW Galleries, 2019. Photo: Zan Wimberley

Rachel O’Reilly, with Pa.LaC.E (Valle Medina and Benjamin Reynolds) and Rodrigo Hernandez, Drawing Rights 2018.  Installation view, ‘The Gas Imaginary’, UNSW Galleries, 2019. Photo: Zan Wimberley

 

Rachel O’Reilly, with Pa.LaC.E (Valle Medina and Benjamin Reynolds) and Rodrigo Hernandez, Drawing Rights 2018.  Installation view, ‘The Gas Imaginary’, UNSW Galleries, 2019. Photo: Zan Wimberley

 

Rachel O’Reilly, with Pa.LaC.E (Valle Medina and Benjamin Reynolds) and Rodrigo Hernandez, Drawing Rights 2018.  Installation view, ‘The Gas Imaginary’, UNSW Galleries, 2019. Photo: Zan Wimberley 

Public Programs

Symposium: From Site to Place
11am Saturday 22 Jun - 3:30pm Sunday 23 Jun, UNSW Galleries
Rachel O'Reilly presents on two occasions across day one and day two of the symposium 'From Site to Place'.

Panel Discussion
2pm Sunday 23 June, Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of NSW

Exhibiting artists Rachel O'Reilly and Lu Forsberg join Joe Collins (University of Sydney) and Livia Rezende (UNSW Art & Design) to explore the political economy and aesthetic representation of mining and fracking in Australia and beyond.
 

Talk: Fracturing Image Economies
2pm Sunday 23 June, Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of NSW

In this talk, Rachel O'Reilly will address concepts emerged from her ongoing project 'The Gas Imaginary', initiated in 2013 following the birth of the Australian unconventional gas industry through Gladstone on Gooreng Gooreng land. Using poetry, collaborative drawings, film and public talks O'Reilly's work tracks continuities and differences between the mining regimes of colonial modernism and new forms currently moving across borders in the contemporary era. 
 

Lecture: Macarena Gómez-Barris
5.30pm Tuesday 16 July, UNSW Galleries 

Author and Academic Macarena Gómez-Barris presents a lecture titled 'Submerged Memories of the Colonial Anthropocene'. In the era of the colonial anthropocene how do we address histories of loss and disappearance in relation to resurgence? Thinking with Patagonia and other southern spaces, and the Fuegan peoples, Gómez-Barris examines how we might address decolonial representation as working to a politics of and critical solidarity with Indigenous cultural memory, presence, and planetary futures.

Introduction by Dr Verónica Tello, Lecturer, Contemporary Art Theory, UNSW Art & Design. Response by Anastasia Murney, PhD candidate Art Theory, UNSW Art & Design.

Presented in partnership with UNSW Art & Design Research Forum, and in conjunction with 'Rachel O'Reilly: The Gas Imaginary' and 'Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes'.
 

Talk & Workshop: Knitting Nannas Against Gas
2pm Saturday 20 July, UNSW Galleries

The Sydney Knitting Nannas engages in a discussion on the use of knitting as a tool for non-violent political activism and a banner making workshop. Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG) are a nationwide activist network who peacefully and productively protest against the destruction of land and water by exploration and mining of Coal Seam Gas and other non-renewable energy. Presented in conjunction with 'Rachel O'Reilly: The Gas Imaginary' and 'Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes'.