Award-winning artist Emily Parsons-Lord is transforming Abbotsford Convent's Magdalen Laundry into an immersive climate experience this November.
Here’s one for anyone who’s ever wondered what planetary collapse might actually feel like.
We Are Exploding lands at Abbotsford Convent from 14-23 November, bringing two installations that turn the invisible stuff of our atmosphere into something you can see, hear and breathe in.
We Are Exploding
- 14-23 November
- Magdalen Laundry, Abbotsford Convent
- 11am-6pm daily
- Free entry to exhibition
- Public program 15-16 November
- Cultural Walk tickets $50, other events free
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The exhibition centres around air as both material and metaphor, exploring how we experience the climate crisis through our senses. Parsons-Lord has created two major works for the show: Things Fall Apart and Trembling. Things Fall Apart revisits a 2017 collaboration with plant communication specialist Monica Gagliano, where a column of mist infused with methyl jasmonate falls into a circular void. The chemical is a pheromone that plants release when they’re under environmental stress, something humans can smell but haven’t evolved to understand. Visitors can stand beneath the installation and breathe it in.
Trembling takes a different approach, suspending materials from the climate crisis inside blocks of dry ice made from CO₂ recovered from beer and wine production. These materials include fragments of the KT boundary geological marker left by the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs, lead shot from shooting ranges, carbon captured from air pollution and actual meteorites. As the dry ice sublimates, everything falls onto amplified ceramic surfaces cast from the Magdalen Laundry’s original bricks, transforming their impacts into sound.
The unrestored Magdalen Laundry provides the backdrop for both installations, adding layers of human, environmental and geological history to the experience. The southern section of the building remains largely untouched, creating what Abbotsford Convent CEO Justine Hyde describes as a low-intervention space where reclaimed materials can interplay and transform.
Beyond the main exhibition, We Are Exploding includes a dedicated public program across 15-16 November. Saturday’s lineup features a Cultural Walk with Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Senior Environmental Educator Joe Costello, an Artist in Conversation session with Jeff Khan, Creative Director Asia TOPA, and a sound performance by Evelyn Ida Morris. Sunday brings readings from writers Nisha Madhan, Tahmina Maskinyar and Roslyn Orlando, all responding to the work.
Parsons-Lord describes the exhibition as exploring an ongoing planetary event, a slow-motion explosion that began with the Industrial Revolution and continues today. The artist works with air and explosions to create what she calls visually stunning, embodied installations that speak to both the invisibility and spectacle of collapse.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with Abbotsford Convent.
