Peak Whale Oil I
Sawtooth ARI, Invermay, Launceston, lutruwita.
Grace Connors, Chantelle Mitchell, Nadège Philippe-Janon, Jack Wansbrough, and Jaxon Waterhouse
curated by Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse
Peak Whale Oil is a group exhibition of new work investigating whaling industries and surfeits of whale oil produced in Australia throughout the 1800s through a contemporary petrocultural lens. Through material investigation, Peak Whale Oil posits a synchronicity between geologic and marine resource extraction. Working from a historical locatedness toward speculative future, Peak Whale Oil draws terrestrial and aquatic equivalences between peaks of petroleum and the continual unfurling of ‘peak oil’ discourse, as read diffractively through the past pursuit and persecution of cetacean bodies. curated by Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse