In a world of hard edges, how do you observe softness? On the inverse, how do you find a stable footing on soft surfaces? Tread gently at The Lock-Up and uncover softness through time-based practices.
'Soft' is at once grounding and unstable, in the ever-changing fleshy vessels that hold you (your own and of others), the porous boundaries between imaginary and visceral worlds, or the socio-political terrains that conceal slippages of shifting ground. Hardness is easily defined in its rigidity, oppression, and the absolute. Softness is more elusive: softness is slippery, subjective, and often taken for granted.
Softness is the methodology in this group exhibition of interdisciplinary practices, installation, moving image, video, film, and animation. Against harsh realities of personal and environmental disasters, or the unyielding grind of time, softness manifests itself as subversion, surrender and resistance. 'A soft space to stand' includes works by Jamie Bastoli, Jasmine Craciun, Alysha Fewster, Fiona Lee, David Lobb, Ali Noble and Nicole Smede. Consider what it means to respond to the social, environmental and existential crises of living.
