The Presence of the Absence: Exhibition Now Open at UWA
The Presence of the Absence exhibition is now showing at the Cullity Gallery on the Design Campus at UWA from 5 – 15 March, presenting two works that explore intentional absence as a creative and design proposition.
Part 1: a story set in the near future II
First presented at Certosa in Milan in 2022 as The Presence of the Absence: the room in the near future, now adapted for the site on goorndaralup boodja Country and titled ‘a story set in the near future II.’
Visitors enter a room set in the near future and experience a future time untethered from the weight of an enormously productive, extractive imperative.
The installation expands on ideas explored in Sarah K’s book The Presence of the Absence | Beyond Productivity, which proposes that contemporary society occupies a collective field of enormous productivity that is negatively impacting ecosystems at scale. The book envisages a near future in which we have lost interest not only in consumerism but also in producing things as we do in the current paradigm.
Instead, it proposes intentionally incorporating absence — or a presence of absence of the human-made — into designed outcomes, as it has traditionally been incorporated into Eastern and Indigenous cultures.
Part 2: As it is (what’s already there)
This non-built, ephemeral work – a place to sweep – is the first public presentation of the initiative women in the field, designed to be experienced with no intention other than the gentle meditative movement of sweeping — grounding the sweeper mindfully in place.
Using only what’s already there — the place as it is found, including leaves, brooms and rakes — the work adds nothing. Instead, accumulated dirt is cleaned away from the paving into a circular shape that might, or might not become a place to sweep leaves into or out of, subtracting instead of adding to the energetic field of enormous productivity.
Women in the field was founded in 2023 by four Australian women in the architectural field — Sarah K, Alex Lawlor, Naomi Barun and Saran Kim — to give form and programme to the concept of the Presence of the Absence in the year following its launch at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in 2022. Their combined experience spans architectural design, landscape architecture, international curation and large-scale project management.
The exhibition is open from 5 – 15 March, daily from 10am – 4pm at the Cullity Gallery, School of Design, UWA.
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