Sandra Selig and Primitive Motion
Infinite Space

Infinite Space is a site-specific installation and live performance work that draws on the architecture and atmosphere of the heritage-listed St Patrick’s Church in Fortitude Valley.

Sandra Selig creates artwork that reveals the systems at the edge of our perception. Her work highlights our bodily relationship with space and the interconnectedness of natural and human-made forces through nuanced spatial interventions.

Selig casts St Patrick’s as a vessel for the accumulated sounds, movements, and memories that are contained in spiritually potent spaces. The church acts as a speaker box for the amplification of sound and light—vibrations that spill outward and reverberate infinitely through time and space.

Across the evening visitors are invited to explore a large-scale drawing on the lawn of the church, soak in a live durational musical performance by Primitive Motion (the collaborative project of Sandra Selig and Leighton Craig) and watch light and shadows dance around this atmospheric venue.


Biographies

Sandra Selig
Using a range of media, including works on paper, video, light, and sound, Sandra Selig creates subtle works from commonplace materials such as paper, string, sewing thread, and phosphorescent paint. Her work often investigates concepts of intangibility and the unseen, with her evocative site-specific installations in particular revealing a myriad of nuanced complexities around the transformation and perception of space.

Selig has been exhibiting widely in Australia since 2000. Selected exhibitions include: Drawn in Time Floes, Milani Gallery Brisbane 2020; The National: New Australian Art 2019, Art Gallery of New South Wales 2019, Kaleidoscopic Turn, National Gallery of Victoria 2015; Luminous, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2015; Her work is held in a number of Australia’s public art collections.

Primitive Motion
Primitive Motion is the collaborative project of Leighton Craig and Sandra Selig. Recent projects include live outdoor improvisations responsive to the natural environment for Botanica, Brisbane City Gardens (2019), Open Actions, Enogerra Reservoir (2019), and Why Listen to Plants, Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens (2018).

Primitive Motion’s audio-visual collaboration Special Mechanism for Universal Uncertainty was included in Before and After Science at the 2010 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and subsequently acquired by the Buxton Collection, Melbourne. They have released a number of albums via the Australian label Bedroom Suck and “A Guide to Saints” series by Lawrence English.



Partners

This one-night only work is part of Brisbane Art and Design Festival 2021, 7–30 May. Presented by the Institute of Modern Art in association with Museum of Brisbane. BAD is an initiative of Museum of Brisbane and is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. This event is also generously supported St Patrick’s Church, Fortitude Valley.

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land where this event takes place. We pay our respect to Elders past, present, and emerging.

Institute of Modern Art | Ground Floor, Judith Wright Arts Centre, 420 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley | ima.org.au

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