Alicia Frankovich - AQI2020

AQI2020 is a new commission by New Zealand performance and installation artist, Alicia Frankovich. It derives from the conditions experienced during the Australian bush fire season of summer 2019—2020, which had an unprecedented effect on people, wildlife and land, emitting dangerous levels of smoke across Australia which were also seen in New Zealand. Stemming from the artist’s firsthand experience of the fires and their media reportage, AQI2020 takes the imagery and experience and re-imagines it through the tools of choreographic movement, exploring the limits of documentation and information in exchange for live experience.

Visitors will find a large clear-orange box in the Gallery’s North Atrium, inside of which can be observed a smokey scene with performers moving in choreographed gestures. The title references the ‘Air Quality Index’, an international system for monitoring pollutants in our atmosphere.

Following on from recent large multi-participant works like The Work, 2019, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and Atlas of the Living World, 2017, Stedelijk Museum, Frankovich builds an environment in which participants from a range of backgrounds respond to imagery, anecdotes and primary experiences, as a collective of interchangeable bodies.

Alicia Frankovich was born in New Zealand and lives and works in Melbourne. In 2012, she was a finalist for the acclaimed Walters Prize. Recent exhibitions and performances include those at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Image credit: Photography courtesy of Kirsty Blake.