Mikala DWYER Ghosts of the Future

For some months, Mikala Dwyer has been fastidiously observing the lace-necked doves who come to fossick in her backyard. This makes sense. Dwyer has, over the course of her career, scrupulously challenged our tightly-held notion of the rational, organising power of the human mind over the field of objects outside of it. She explores the spangling liveliness of objects, the supernatural, and the slow seeping of the nonhuman into our ways of seeing and being in the world.

These doves have ‘become constant companions,’ she explains, ‘and I’ve learned the absolute joy of that companionship.’ Dwyer spent a deal of time with these creatures during lockdown in Melbourne, where she had recently moved from her hometown, Sydney, upon an appointment with RMIT University. ‘The quietness of lockdown,’ she says, ‘presented an