Liam Young: Planetary Redesign is the first major solo exhibition of Australian filmmaker and speculative architect Liam Young in the country.
Photo credit: Sean Fennessy
Through an immersive display of moving image works, photography, and costumes made in collaboration with Ane Crabtree (The Handmaid’s Tale), Young proposes thought-provoking redesigns of our planet that offer a radically optimistic solution to the climate crisis.
Photo credit: Sean Fennessy
The exhibition includes the Australian premiere of Young’s latest moving image work, The Great Endeavor, which presents an alternative future where humankind unites to reverse our carbon footprint.
Coming direct to Melbourne from its world-premiere at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture, The Great Endeavor, 2023, depicts the construction of infrastructure powered by renewable energy that removes huge quantities of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. To achieve this, Young imagines a mobilisation of workers and resources on a planetary scale.
The Great Endeavor - Photo credit: Sean Fennessy
Also on display is Planet City, 2016-2023, an animated short film that provides a window into an alternative urban future. Commissioned for the NGV Triennial in 2020 and supported by the Bagôt Gjergja Foundation, it portrays the design of a new city housing the whole human population.
Planet City - Photo credit: Sean Fennessy
The work questions whether the accelerating impacts of climate change could urge everyone to retreat together into one sustainable metropolis, providing space for the rest of the planet to recover as wilderness.
Photo credit: Sean Fennessy
Liam Young: Planetary Redesign is on display from 19 August 2023 to 11 February 2024 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square, Melbourne.
Free. More info here.