Skip to main content

                    Mikala Dwyer – Apparition

                    Projected image of a possum lit by bright purple light, in a tree, at night.

                    ​Mikala Dwyer, Apparition, 2021 night-time digital projection onto holo-gauze screen. Photo by Darren Tanny Tan

                    From 2021 to 2022 Mikala Dwyer’s new temporary public art commission, Apparition, can be seen after dark at University Square, Carlton.

                    This temporary public artwork was developed through a long-term engagement with the site, beginning with a two-week intensive that focused on the contested public realm.   

                    Inspired by a population of possums that inhabit the mature elm trees at the heart of the square, Dwyer worked with animator Gina Moore to create a giant holographic possum, which haunted the square’s northern plaza at night. Activated at dusk, Apparition responded to University Square as a space in flux, suspended between stages of landscape redevelopment for the Metro Tunnel project.  

                    Dwyer is interested in the sensibility and mythology of objects and spaces, including the irrational and the repressed.​​ ‘It is the phenomenon of storytelling that I hope to invoke through the image of a possum appearing and disappearing quietly and randomly in the night,’ Dwyer says.

                    Dwyer also notes how apparitions ‘seem to be dreamt up from a need to symbolise and make meaning out of something – loss, fear, love, birth, death. They also address the deep imbalances around power and the sacred at different times in history. This apparition of possums perhaps asks the question: “Will you miss me when I’m gone?”.’

                    Mikala Dwyer, Apparition was commissioned by the City of Melbourne in collaboration with RMIT University.

                    Skip Video
                    Mikala Dwyer, Apparition, 2021 night-time digital projection onto holo-gauze screen. Videography by Takeshi Kondo

                    Creative response

                    The development of this artwork began with a two-week intensive facilitated by poet, writer and broadcaster Alicia Sometimes. 

                    Read her poem ‘Apparition, after Mikala Dwyer’ written in response to the finished artwork.

                    About the artist

                    Mikala Dwyer (b. 1959 Australia) has pushed the limits of sculpture, painting and performance, establishing herself as one of Australia’s most important contemporary artists. She has been honoured with solo survey exhibitions at Sydney’s two major art museums, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, and the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane.  

                    Dwyer’s works explore how we relate to the object-world; her compounds invite open-ended interaction and take the viewer across boundaries of time, space and geography. While playful and exuberant on the surface, they almost always impel us to imagine something darker beneath – or above. Ordinary and familiar materials draw us in, transformed so as to bring attention to the unseen or occult or what society banishes from view. Emerging from a deep and disobedient engagement with modernist form and space, Dwyer’s works have an eye on the future and relationship at their heart – they have been described as ‘profoundly sociable’. 

                    Dwyer’s work is always responsive to site and context, and her successful public art commissions include Apparition, University Square, Melbourne, 2021; Sydney Metro, 2020; In the Smoke of Ghosts, MUMA 2020; Egg Swing, 2012, Royal Women’s Hospital, Paddington, Sydney; Windwatcher, 2011, Central Park, Chippendale, Sydney; A Lamp for Mary, 2010, Mary Place, Surry Hills, Sydney; Swamp Sculpture, 2006, Omi Sculpture Park, New York, NY; and IOU, 2005, Docklands, Melbourne. 

                    Widely respected for her exceptional commitment and energy in teaching young artists, Dwyer is also a curator who has given many untried artists their first exhibition. She has had several residencies internationally and received numerous scholarships, grants and awards.

                    For more information, visit the artist's website.

                      Was this page helpful?

                      If you'd like to give more feedback or ask a question, please contact us.

                      Connect with Public Art Melbourne

                      FacebookInstagramYouTube