‘Aqueous Landscapes’, designed by SUPERSENSE for the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season Biennale (SUSAS) in 2019, was a poetic and innovative exhibition design investigating historical, Indigenous, and contemporary landscape interventions in Sydney Harbour. A collection of drawings, photographs, and film explored the nuances of this constructed edge, showing how the foreshore operates and where it has been reshaped, reclaimed, transformed, and restored in different ways across time. SUPERSENSE’s experiential design vision eschewed traditional architectural presentation methods, instead using mediums such as fabric, water, and projection to create a more holistic and immersive environment.
A continuous, colour-coded fabric drop displayed a meticulous and original documented elevation line drawing of the shoreline at contrasting scales. Bespoke crystalline cylindrical vessels displayed plans of harbour-edge precincts. These vessels contained subtly moving water, illuminated by concealed floor panels, which conveyed the movement of harbour tides. A video piece in the exhibition comprised vertical ‘slices’ of footage of Sydney Harbour to evocatively showcase varying levels of architectural intervention and the natural characteristics of the landscape.
The exhibition was attended by approximately 20,000 people, received over 100 reviews/mentions in the Chinese media, and was attended by President Xi Jinping.
Curation
Prof. Helen Lochhead OAM and Assoc Prof. Ainslie Murray
Junior curators
Fram Kitagawa and Xing Ruan
Architectural drawing
Josh Sleight
Aqueous Landscapes
A poetic and innovative exhibition using unconventional materials
‘Aqueous Landscapes’ was a poetic and innovative exhibition investigating historical, Indigenous and contemporary landscape interventions in Sydney Harbour.
+ Read More
Bespoke crystalline cylindrical vessels displayed plans of harbour-edge precincts. These vessels contained subtly moving water, illuminated by concealed floor panels, which conveyed the movement of harbour tides.
A continuous, colour-coded fabric drop displayed a meticulous and original documented elevation line drawing of the shoreline at contrasting scales.
‘Aqueous Landscapes’ was a poetic and innovative exhibition investigating historical, Indigenous and contemporary landscape interventions in Sydney Harbour.
+ Read More
Bespoke crystalline cylindrical vessels displayed plans of harbour-edge precincts. These vessels contained subtly moving water, illuminated by concealed floor panels, which conveyed the movement of harbour tides.
A continuous, colour-coded fabric drop displayed a meticulous and original documented elevation line drawing of the shoreline at contrasting scales.
