David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton

We actively seek to connect with audiences by creating immersive works that reconfigure familiar scenes to create new meaning. Increasingly, our practice responds to issues such as the climate crisis, colonisation, and social alienation; and reflects upon our own personal complicity in the systems and cycles that drive the status quo. We are interested in the multifaceted and constructed nature of histories – personal, physical, cultural, and fictional – and the way that these histories are always intertwined, malleable, and perpetually shifting. Our work is heavily influenced by pre-cinematic optical illusions, traditional museum displays and theatrical magic. Much of our art takes the form of quasi-dioramas and models, incorporating elements of motion and optical phenomena. These objects and techniques have historically been used to explore existential questions. The dreamlike scenes convey familiar feelings and sensations, magnified by repetition and the constructed nature of the scene.

History changes depending on who’s telling it, and who’s hearing it. Night Shift is a series of three immersive sculptures that utilise diorama modelling techniques and optical illusion to interrogate the elevation of certain histories, particularly those that privilege narratives focusing on ideas such as progress, prosperity, discovery and growth. Using Kandos as a site of exploration, the project is a contemplation on the transient nature of perception and the enduring power of storytelling to shape our shared reality.