Seventh Gallery

We are beginning a new project, working in a longer format across three consecutive exhibitions. Please join us next Wednesday from 6–8pm for the first chapter: ᴘᴜʟᴘ, an exhibition by Angus Brown. ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sᴘɪʀɪᴛ: ɴᴏᴛᴇs ᴛᴏᴡᴀʀᴅ ᴀ ᴠɪᴛᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɪᴀʟɪsᴍ A long-form exhibition in three parts with contributions by Angus Brown, Leon Rice-Whetton, Kym Maxwell, Nicholas Burridge, Rachel Rovira and Katie Paine. Conceived as three chapters within a single, unfolding inquiry into matter, extraction, transformation, and site, the project brings together distinct approaches under a shared investigation: what if matter is not inert substrate but active participant? What if landscapes, infrastructures, roots, minerals, pulp, clay, cables, and wreckage exert forces of their own? The project draws from contemporary vital materialist thought, particularly the work of Jane Bennett, whose conception of vibrant matter proposes that agency is distributed across human and nonhuman assemblages. Matter does not simply receive form. It impedes, exceeds, collaborates. This thinking resonates with earlier philosophies of nature, in which matter is understood as duration and spontaneous generation rather than static substance. At the same time, the project remains attentive to political economy. In dialogue with Joshua Simon’s writing on neomaterialism, the exhibitions consider how materials circulate through regimes of extraction, production, and value. Timber becomes pulp. Pulp becomes paper. Clay becomes surface. Infrastructure becomes spectacle. Submarine cables become invisible architecture. Commodities and ruins alike accumulate historical force. Across the three exhibitions, material transformation is understood as a structuring force, shaping landscapes, infrastructures, and forms through ongoing processes of extraction, decay, circulation, and renewal. Angus Brown 4 March – 18 April Leon Rice-Whetton, Kym Maxwell, Nicholas Burridge 29 April – 13 June Rachel Rovira, Katie Paine 24 June – 15 August This project is supported by Yarra City Arts. @panga_playedout @leonrw @kymmaxwelll @nicholas_burridge @r0v1ra @dreamsofspeaking

Strange Powers, with work by Kym Maxwell, Nicholas Burridge, and Leon Rice-Whetton. We are open regular hours this week - Wed-Sat, 12-6pm. If your in the neighbourhood come see the show 😄 Pics courtesy of @meg_de_young

The City of Yarra’s Draft Budget 2026/27 is open for community feedback until midnight this Sunday 17 May. Seventh is submitting feedback. Here’s what we’re focusing on, and why we think you should submit too. The Arts, Culture and Venues budget has been cut. Down $58,000 in cash, and around $161,000 in real terms once rising costs are factored in. Council’s own revenue goes up every year - by 2.75% in 2026/27. The arts budget is going down. That’s a choice. It’s not a budget with no money. Total expenditure is rising from $236m to $253m - a $17m increase overall. This is a budget that has decided arts and culture can absorb a cut while other things grow. The four named arts initiatives in this budget are all festivals and events. Nothing for artist-run spaces. Nothing for studios. Nothing for organisations trying to stay in Yarra. Room to Create (Council’s program for affordable creative workspace) appears as a listed key service with no dollar amount, no named initiative, no performance indicator. It was established in 2013 with a $1 million target. Twelve years on, it sits at around $255,000. The Strategy that anchors it expires this year, with no announced successor. Meanwhile, NFP organisations are being charged 3 to 5 times more than commercial hirers in percentage terms to use Council venues. Richmond Theatrette NFP day rate is up 47%. Large community space NFP hourly rate is up 37%. Commercial hirers are protected. The “concession” is shrinking. The cultural sector doesn’t collapse. It contracts, quietly, sustained by the love and labour of the people inside it, until the conditions that made it vital no longer exist. Yarra can choose to be different. We think you should ask them to. Submit your feedback - yoursayyarra.com.au/draft-budget-202627 If you’re short on time but share our concerns - DM us and we’ll send you some key points or a template you can use for your submission.

Thanks to everyone who came to the opening of Strange Powers - the second iteration of Matter and Spirit, an exhibition series exploring material transformation as structuring force. In Strange Powers, Kym Maxwell, Nicholas Burridge, and Leon Rice-Whetton look to the network (electrical, mycorrhizal, logistical) as material condition and active force. Strange Powers is open until 13 June. @kymmaxwelll  @nicholas_burridge  @leonrw  @yarracityarts

We’re pleased to announce the opening of sᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀs, an exhibition with work by Kym Maxwell, Nicholas Burridge, Leon Rice-Whetton, next Wednesday 29 April, 6-8pm. Please come along. The second chapter of Matter & Spirit gathers three practices around the network (electrical, mycorrhizal, logistical) as material condition and active force. Where the opening exhibition traced the life cycle of a single resource, this exhibition moves outward. Into contested river systems, industrial dead zones, and the underground life of soil. All three artists are attentive to what Jane Bennett calls thing-power - the capacity of nonhuman matter to impede, exceed, or redirect human intention. But none of the works exist outside of capital either. A river shaped by five thousand years of mining and the British company that industrialised it; a tree felled to service power lines; a portside landscape restructured around the movement of freight. They are also grounded, then, in the political question Joshua Simon poses: who extracts, who profits, and what gets left behind. The works in this exhibition follow matter as it organises itself; across, beneath, and often in spite of the systems imposed on it. Image | Brett Eloff. The Makapansgat cobble, a jasperite pebble excavated in 1925 from the Makapan Valley, South Africa. Its nearest geological source is approximately 32km from where it was found, suggesting it was carried there by an Australopithecus africanus individual between 2 and 3 million years ago, making it one of the oldest known manuports. A manuport is a natural object whose only transformation is displacement. No extraction, no processing, just a decision by someone to pick something up and move it somewhere else. Because manuports are unmodified, archaeologists have concluded that many must have been chosen for their beauty, making them some of the earliest known recognitions of aesthetic character, and possibly some of the earliest examples of (found) art. This project is supported by the City of Yarra. @kymmaxwelll @nicholas_burridge @leonrw  @yarracityarts

While we’re getting ready for our next exhibition opening next week (more details soon!), we wanted to take a moment to reflect on last Wednesday evening’s workshop with Minnie Park - Touching Resonance. It was an intimate session held here in the space, where participants connected plants and water up to Minnie’s custom circuit board, and from there, to her computer. Plants, water, human touch. All of it conducts electricity, and all of it becomes material to work with. Under the guidance of Minnie, participants played plants and water like one collective instrument - it was so epic and cool. Minnie also generously shared her process and the software tools behind it all. Thank you Minnie for bringing this work to the gallery. 🌿 And to all those who came along to participate. @minniepark.studio

It’s the last week to see ᴘᴜʟᴘ by Angus Brown - the first chapter in ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sᴘɪʀɪᴛ – ɴᴏᴛᴇs ᴛᴏᴡᴀʀᴅ ᴀ ᴠɪᴛᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɪᴀʟɪsᴍ. The gallery will be open regular hours this week, with the final day to see the show being this Saturday, 18 April. In ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sᴘɪʀɪᴛ each exhibition approaches questions of matter, extraction, transformation, and site, asking: what if matter is not inert substrate, but active participant? In ᴘᴜʟᴘ, Angus treats the photograph both as an image and as an object shaped by the same material forces it depicts. Capturing the substance and significance of industry across South Western Victoria, Angus has produced physically embodied images of the blue gum plantations across the region, as well as the industrial sites where these trees are processed into pulp. The photographs document vast monocultures, open-air stockpiles and the continuous movement of timber through 24-hour pulping terminals. These landscapes feel engineered and otherworldly, shaped by extraction, repetition and scale. In the gallery the project follows the life cycle of the blue gum from plantation to pulp, tracing the transformation of tree into paper. This movement is represented in the photographs themselves, and also materially embedded within them. Scrap limbs salvaged from recently flattened plantations have been pulped into sawdust; to be introduced into the exhibition space as a sculptural element, tangible image surface and paper toning method. Strengthening the connection to process and place, these material links help to make the image-based works inseparable from the resource they depict.   What emerges is a kind of circular return. The tree becomes pulp, pulp becomes paper, paper becomes image, and the image carries the residue of its origin. There is something quietly alchemical in this shift of states, where matter changes form yet retains a trace of what it has been. The material does not disappear into representation. It persists within it. This project is supported by the City of Yarra. @panga_playedout  @yarracityarts

ᴘᴜʟᴘ by Angus Brown - showing until 18 April. Wednesday–Saturday, 12-6pm. Boneyards. Screen print on Magnani Acquerello 550gsm watercolour paper - made with sawdust pulped from salvaged blue gums, PVA and print paste. This is a beautifully made work that is difficult to fully appreciate in a photograph. Angus has used the silkscreen process to push the material through itself: blue gum rendered in blue gum. The image and its subject share the same substance. It's definitely a work that asks to be seen in person. This work, along with others in the exhibition, is for sale. Let us know if you are interested. @panga_playedout  @yarracityarts

Join us for a free workshop with Minnie Park on 15 April. Register via the link in our bio. Touching Resonance: Plants as Living Interfaces for Sensory Performance Touching Resonance grows out of Minnie Park’s audio-visual practice, which centres touch, affect, and audience participation as core artistic materials. In this workshop, Minnie extends that practice into a shared, hands-on experience, where plants and flowers become tactile interfaces that trigger sound and visuals in real time through conductive touch technology. Bring a small plant, or use flowers provided on the day. Once connected to the system, your plant responds to touch, activating sounds and visuals that you select and shape alongside other participants. The workshop concludes with a live collective performance, composed and recorded together by the group. No prior technical experience required. All are welcome. @minniepark.studio /content/event-touching-resonance-minnie-park

ᴘᴜʟᴘ, Angus Brown - showing until 18 April. If you haven’t visited yet, we’d love to see you. The gallery is open Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm. For this body of work, Angus travelled through the Green Triangle, a region of south-west Victoria centred around Hamilton and Portland, and the largest wood fibre producing region in Australia. Across approximately 130,000 hectares, Tasmanian blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) is grown, harvested, and processed on a 10–15 year rotation cycle, valued for its short, high-quality fibres and high pulp yield. At processing terminals near Myamyn and the Port of Portland, woodchip mountains accumulate around the clock, loaded and shipped to China and Japan for use in paper and rayon textile manufacturing. Angus returned from the region with photographic documentation of the plantations, the open-air stockpiles, and the 24-hour pulping terminals, and also with offcuts of blue gum collected from around the sites, pieces of which are pictured here. These he pulped himself, producing the mounds of sawdust now present in the gallery. The timber fragments that remain (installed as sculptural objects in the space) are what the process left behind. There is something in this that speaks directly to the logic of the Green Triangle itself - raw material extracted from Victorian farmland, exported unrefined, transformed elsewhere, and returned in another form. The exhibition stages a version of this same movement (tree to pulp, pulp to paper, paper to image) collapsing the distance between landscape and representation. Matter circulates. The gallery becomes another stop along the way.

ᴘᴜʟᴘ by Angus Brown is showing until 18 April. ᴘᴜʟᴘ marks the first chapter in ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sᴘɪʀɪᴛ – ɴᴏᴛᴇs ᴛᴏᴡᴀʀᴅ ᴀ ᴠɪᴛᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɪᴀʟɪsᴍ. A long-form exhibition in three parts, conceived as chapters within a single inquiry into matter, extraction, transformation, and site. Each exhibition approaches these questions differently, yet all are grounded in a shared investigation: what if matter is not inert substrate, but active participant? In ᴘᴜʟᴘ, Angus treats the photograph both as an image and as an object shaped by the same material forces it depicts. Capturing the substance and significance of industry across South Western Victoria, Angus has produced physically embodied images of the blue gum plantations across the region, as well as the industrial sites where these trees are processed into pulp. The photographs document vast monocultures, open-air stockpiles and the continuous movement of timber through 24-hour pulping terminals. These landscapes feel engineered and otherworldly, shaped by extraction, repetition and scale. In the gallery the project follows the life cycle of the blue gum from plantation to pulp, tracing the transformation of tree into paper. This movement is represented in the photographs themselves, and also materially embedded within them. Scrap limbs salvaged from recently flattened plantations have been pulped into sawdust; to be introduced into the exhibition space as a sculptural element, tangible image surface and paper toning method. Strengthening the connection to process and place, these material links help to make the image-based works inseparable from the resource they depict.   What emerges is a kind of circular return. The tree becomes pulp, pulp becomes paper, paper becomes image, and the image carries the residue of its origin. There is something quietly alchemical in this shift of states, where matter changes form yet retains a trace of what it has been. The material does not disappear into representation. It persists within it. This project is supported by the City of Yarra. @panga_playedout  @yarracityarts

We’re pleased to invite you to the opening of ᴘᴜʟᴘ, a new exhibition by Angus Brown, next Wednesday 4th of March, 6 – 8pm. ᴘᴜʟᴘ marks the first chapter in ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ sᴘɪʀɪᴛ – ɴᴏᴛᴇs ᴛᴏᴡᴀʀᴅ ᴀ ᴠɪᴛᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɪᴀʟɪsᴍ. A project unfolding across three consecutive exhibitions, conceived as chapters within a single inquiry into matter, extraction, transformation, and site. Each exhibition approaches these questions differently, yet all are grounded in a shared investigation: what if matter is not inert substrate, but active participant? In ᴘᴜʟᴘ, Angus treats the photograph both as an image and as an object shaped by the same material forces it depicts. Capturing the substance and significance of industry across South Western Victoria, Angus has produced physically embodied images of the blue gum plantations across the region, as well as the industrial sites where these trees are processed into pulp. The photographs document vast monocultures, open-air stockpiles and the continuous movement of timber through 24-hour pulping terminals. These landscapes feel engineered and otherworldly, shaped by extraction, repetition and scale. In the gallery the project follows the life cycle of the blue gum from plantation to pulp, tracing the transformation of tree into paper. This movement is represented in the photographs themselves, and also materially embedded within them. Scrap limbs salvaged from recently flattened plantations have been pulped into sawdust; to be introduced into the exhibition space as a sculptural element, tangible image surface and paper toning method. Strengthening the connection to process and place, these material links help to make the image-based works inseparable from the resource they depict.   What emerges is a kind of circular return. The tree becomes pulp, pulp becomes paper, paper becomes image, and the image carries the residue of its origin. There is something quietly alchemical in this shift of states, where matter changes form yet retains a trace of what it has been. The material does not disappear into representation. It persists within it. This project is supported by the City of Yarra. @panga_playedout @yarracityarts