Underground

As above so below Underground – a word of cultural metaphors, the avant garde, political resistance, counter-culture, abhorrence and fear of the unknown, the fiery world of Hades, the source of the minerals that make our technological culture possible but also the resting place of many of the oldest human cultural artifacts. In this exhibition four Blue Mountains artists take the viewer through a labyrinth of works inspired by geological energies that reach from the furthest and earliest parts of the cosmos to end up under our feet and in the art works themselves and the technology we use to make and view them. As our renewable technologies and media rely on the critical minerals extracted through mining, Australia is once again the depository of riches for a new era. Critical minerals are the agents of change as essential components that enable the transmission of information and power future technologies. We live in an age when human dominance of biological, chemical, and geological processes is reshaping the Earth. Outside of the scientific realm geo-mythologies created over millennia emanate from beneath the Earth’s crust among them the gods and demons of the Underworld. Artists: Vicky Browne, Rachel Peachey & Paul Mosig, and Simon Reece A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition curated by Miriam Williamson All images: Silversalt Photography