Eighty artworks by eight artists are buried underneath tonnes of dirt inside Carriageworks. Photograph: R\u00e9mi Chauvin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
During the installation process, I see a bronze mushroom, a canister of kangaroo apple and a spider costume buried under 120 tonnes of earth. Already interred: a human figure cast in hardened dirt, and a funerary urn. Each represents a \u201cdangerous idea\u201d \u2013 something \u201cthat has potential to change the world if taken seriously\u201d, says festival director Danielle Harvey. Audiences are invited to \u201creally get their hands dirty\u201d in excavating these ideas, \u201cas a prompt to think a bit deeply\u201d about thorny issues such as climate change and colonisation.<\/p>\n
Heap draws on a \u201cvery obvious metaphor,\u201d Harvey concedes, but a powerful one. \u201cWe\u2019re a country built on mining and excavating, so what we find in the dirt and the lens that we [put on it] \u2013 whether it\u2019s interesting or dangerous, and how we value it \u2013 is super interesting in an Australian context.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workers installing the final few objects buried as a part of Heap, at Sydney\u2019s Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Photograph: R\u00e9mi Chauvin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Unlike the mining industry, diggers will be required to relinquish any treasure they unearth, with the artworks progressively added to a nearby display.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to find new ways to get people to pay attention to these issues,\u201d Harvey says. \u201cArt feels like a really important way to progress and expand some of these conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penkethman-Young\u2019s cheeky provocation cloaks a radical idea: what if we didn\u2019t treat machines as an endless source of production? The artist limited use of her 3D printer to a standard work week of 38 hours, capping output at one tile per day. It would have been quicker and easier to run the printer 24-7, but Penkethman-Young is pushing back on this mindset. Her artwork is an invitation \u201cto think about all invisible labour\u201d and how we value it \u2013 or fail to. \u201cWhat would it mean if I really stood by my ethics? This is the silliest take I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018This is the silliest take I could do\u2019 \u2026 Sophie Penkethman-Young\u2019s artwork is buried. Photograph: R\u00e9mi Chauvin\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Wiradjuri artist Brook Andrew\u2019s dangerous idea is couched more poetically: a series of canisters bearing medicinal and edible plants native to the Americas, the Middle East and Australia, each accompanied by an explanatory note. Andrew worked with botanical specialists and Indigenous medicine people to source the specimens and stories, which include Lebanese wild thyme (za\u2019atar), Australia\u2019s murnong (yam daisy), and several types of hallucinogenic Brugmansia (angel\u2019s trumpet), used for healing and spiritual practices in Colombia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpening ourselves up to knowledge systems that are thousands of years old\u201d is inherently dangerous in this highly pharmaceuticalised era, says Andrew. Many of the plants in his project are considered dangerous through a western lens \u2013 such as coca, used to produce cocaine, and the poisonous Borrachero \u2013 whereas their indigenous uses are purely salutary. The way we frame plants is often \u201cbuilt around racism, around ignorance,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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