Patricia Piccinini has terraformed her suite of immersive multisensory installations at GOMA during ‘Curious Affection‘ to resemble earth – however she has taken every freedom, turning flowers into flesh, torsos into trees, and bats into fungi – and vice versa.

Brimming with fertility, Piccinini conjures a sense of how very different our world could be if we modeled different values – and sought to participate in the natural world to infuse it with new potential for wonder and enchantment. Together, these elements make an expansive world to navigate and explore.

The Grotto, one of the installations especially conceived for GOMA’s expansive spaces, is a place of wonder inhabited by three Eagle Egg Men who share their ‘camp’ with flying foxes – mega bats. These bats are pollinators, a vital link in the chain of fertility that link animals and plants, fungi too, occupy this web of life.

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Patricia Piccinini, Australia b.1965 / The Grotto 2018 / 300 objects: ceramic, copper / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco / © The artist

Patricia Piccinini reflects on ‘The Grotto’

Feature image detail: Patricia Piccinini’s The Grotto 2018 installed at GOMA