Exhibitions

Auckland

Alicia Frankovich AQI2020

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki 21 October–8 November

VICTORIA WYNNE-JONES

Haze. The steady sound of a helicopter approaching, then flying overhead.

A slow rumbling. The squawk of cockatoos and a whoosh of wind as it fans audible flames. A persistent electronic drone and the thrum of a distorted bass guitar. These were selected components from a sound composition by Igor Kłaczyński for AQI2020, a commission from Melbourne-based, New Zealand artist Alicia Frankovich for the North Atrium of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Aside from Kłaczyński’s soundtrack to a slow-burning apocalypse, the installation consisted of an immense enclosure made of steel and lurid yellow acrylic. Within the box were six performers, an inflatable boat, collapsible deckchairs, chilly bins, blankets and towels, the accoutrements of a perfect summer.

A hazer periodically filled the container with smoke that combined with the light spilling from the large atrium windows to cause the entire installation to glow with an eerie light, recalling that which made its way across the Tasman on 5 January 2020.

The artwork is Frankovich’s response to the horrific environmental conditions faced in early 2020, a time when several months of the Australian bushfires caused the Air Quality Index (AQI) to record pollutants that dramatically exceeded safe levels.

To encounter is to bear witness to tableaux vivants of the fires as captured by their coverage in both legacy and social media. These choreographic prompts include a koala raising its head to drink from a fire-fighter’s water bottle and Prime Minister Scott Morrison forcibly shaking a person’s hand after they have refused. All six performers fashion a fire-hose from towels and blankets and work together to spray