Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When

Angelica Mesiti has created an immersive installation for the former wartime oil bunker beneath Naala Badu, the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ north building. A rich visual and sonic experience, Angelica Mesiti: The Rites of When is a large-scale video and sound installation that reimagines collective and communal rituals in relation to seasonal cycles, at a time of environmental uncertainty and flux. Mesiti adapts choreography, vocal choruses, instrumentation and collective sound-making to re-examine activities familiar to communities who have deep bonds with seasonal rhythms. Ecstatic celebrations associated with specific moments in the calendar – notably mid-winter solstice carnivals and mid-summer harvest festivals – are played out across seven monolithic screens, offering a portal into a realm alongside past and present: an imagined alternative.