Mon­u­men­tal

Mon­u­men­tal is a new suite of works by Amri­ta Hepi that casts a cen­tral colo­nial fig­ure with­in a con­tin­u­al sun­rise… or is it a sun­set? Through per­for­mance the mon­u­ment is ser­e­nad­ed by sound and dance, then destroyed by pad­dles and crick­et bats, and final­ly replaced by sev­en peo­ple. By cre­at­ing a dream­scape of dance and demise, Hepi sets her sights on the his­tor­i­cal archive of colo­nial mon­u­ments, mak­ing them bod­i­ly once more.

Mon­u­men­tal was made in Jan­u­ary 2020; kept alive in spir­it, action, song and dance through a pan­dem­ic; while oth­er mon­u­ments around the world began to fall and were decommissioned.

Amri­ta Hep­i’s mis­sion as an artist is to push the bar­ri­ers of inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty in form and make work that estab­lish­es mul­ti­ple access points through alle­go­ry. Her prac­tice at present is inter­est­ed in forms of hybrid­i­ty — espe­cial­ly those that arise under empire. 

Com­mis­sioned by Gertrude Contemporary.

Sup­port­ed by the Aus­tralia Coun­cil for the Arts.