Sandra Selig: exploring giant molecules

‘exploring giant molecules’ is the largest exhibition to date of Australian artist Sandra Selig, bringing together key examples of her interdisciplinary projects from the past two decades. 

Selig works at the intersection of visual art and experimental music, using humble materials such as thread, paper, light and sound to articulate intangible notions of form, space, and time. Rather than a chronological overview, the exhibition responds to Selig’s site-specific and iterative practice. It presents six projects that address the dominant concerns, materials, and forms of Selig’s ongoing bodies of work, including the artist's pendulum salt drawings that transform throughout the exhibition. Also included are new thread installations that respond to the gallery’s architecture and spider webs captured on paper — projects that have evolved organically over time and in response to the spaces Selig works and exhibits in. 

The exhibition’s title is a discarded text fragment from an old science book, the source material for her ongoing ‘Cut poems’ series. Selig’s work with sound and experimental music also feature in an accompanying live performance by Primitive Motion.

Accompanying the exhibition is the artist’s first major monograph. It features essays by Hamish Sawyer, Leighton Craig and Professor Susan Best, alongside an interview with José Da Silva, providing important and timely scholarship on Selig’s work and documentation of the exhibition. To support the production of this book, Selig has created the unique edition Matter and being 2021 that connects to the artist’s ongoing interest in line and space within found and built environments.

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Curated by Hamish Sawyer

Developed in partnership with the University of the Sunshine Coast, where the exhibition is presented from 18 February—7 May 2022. Presented with the support of Arts Queensland.

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Image: Installation view, ‘Sandra Selig: exploring giant molecules, UNSW Galleries, 2022. Photography: Jacquie Manning.

Installation vew, 'Sandra Selig: exploring giant molecules' at NorthSite Contemporary Arts, 2023. Photography: Michael Marzik