Nicholas Mangan: Limits to Growth

Overview

What does the world around us look like? Where does our geographic region end? How far will it grow? These questions can be taken a number of ways; however, given that Nicholas Mangan's first survey exhibition is called Limits to Growth, just what the artist is thinking about is evident.

Displaying at the Institute of Modern Art from October 29 to December 18, the showcase brings together five major projects made between 2009 and 2016 that all tell a tale about the global economy, resource extraction, and the ultimate power of the sun. In fact, each relays its own story, while also feeding in to a bigger, broader whole.

The socio-political conditions of energy extraction in Nauru, indigenous activism in Papua New Guinea, large stone coins from the Micronesian island of Yap — they all spring and slide into countless narratives. Indeed, viewing the immersive moving-image installations in Limits to Growth is like viewing the Asia Pacific in a different, specific, revealing and probing light, as guided by an artist who has exhibited everywhere from Brazil to Dublin.

Image: Nicholas Mangan, Matter over Mined 2012 C-type print on cotton paper. Courtesy the artist; Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland; and LABOR, Mexico City, D.F.