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Curated by Shelley McSpedden, The Charge That Binds targets a familiar range of ills (colonialism, the extractive logic of capitalism, our planetary emergency) with a familiar range of artistic buzzwords (relational, ecological, experimental). Moving through the first part of the exhibition at ACCA involves journeying from the hills of Coranderrk to the depths of an intercontinental sea under a looming sky. While in the second part, the exhibition turns speculative in its exploration of liminal zones.
The Charge That Binds stretches vast geographical distances but feels loosely bound. While many works reflect on the fragility of ecological integrity in a local environment, the tie between the works is tenuous. What remains consistent is the effort to chart the significance of place, especially as inhabited by non-human creatures.
Izabela Pluta’s Like folds in water (caustic network) (2024) investigate nature’s technological representations. Songsataya mixes footage of the kotuku, or white heron, which nests in Aotearoa New Zealand and migrates through Asia and the Pacific, much like the artist, with 3D renderings and digital animations of water creatures. Similarly, Pluta’s long hangings of mixed materials depict the aquatic world across many regions, as if to connect them. The work feels confined to the back of the gallery; it is, perhaps aptly, difficult to tell from where one can in fact ‘see’ the work as its thick metallic strands and screens glint and shimmer.
