What Lies Beneath - Catalogue
Artists: Ben Joseph Andrews & Emma Roberts, Tully Arnot, Robyn Backen, Denis Beaubois, Gail Priest and John Tonkin.
by Robyn Backen and John Tonlkin
Curated by Robyn Backen and John Tonkin Thursday 7 August – Saturday 6 September 2025 SCA Gallery, The University of Sydney
Curators in attendance: 2pm – 4pm Thursdays & Saturdays Artist Talk: 3.30pm – 4.30pm Wednesday 27 August
What Lies Beneath, curated by collaborative team Robyn Backen and John Tonkin, showcases works that engage with physical and virtual spaces. The exhibition addresses renewed interest in the concept of immersion and technologies such as VR, by focusing on artists who have long explored experiences that might be considered immersive—storytelling, writing, installation, soundscapes and so on.
This exhibition engages with perception and brings attention to acts of seeing, listening and moving the body. Spoken language and the recollection of memory are other common elements. The audience is encouraged to wander both physically and virtually through different multisensory somatic spaces imagined by seven Australian artists. What Lies Beneath has evolved over many years through collaboration and working alongside each other as artists and academics. Having viewed many mixed reality projects over the last few years, we have brought together some Australian VR and installation artworks that resonate with our own practices. We also aimed to think through some of the challenges of presenting virtual works within a physical space, the gallery.
Taking on the role of curator is a rare and valuable opportunity to participate in conversations with a group of artists who work in ways that broaden how we view and create art. The artworks in What Lies Beneath invite the viewer to step into unstable VR environments, observe a geometric shape struggling to exist, examine how we listen in, challenge our perception of consciousness, participate in fragmented conversations, or imagine how plants might perceive the world.
