The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art is exhibiting ‘You Can’t See Speed’, the first major exhibition by Greek-Australian artist Tina Stefanou.
The exhibition features a new collaborative commission with blind motorcycle mechanic and rider Matthew Cassar, and surveys the Stefanou’s diverse interests in experimental forms of voice, performance, film, sculpture, ethnographic research and socially engaged practice.
It continues her interest in voice, from spoken sonic soundscapes to vocal techniques such as humming.
It also expands on her methodology of deep, long-term, co-creative collaboration and socially engaged practice involving interspecies-communal-performance making.
Her diasporic, working-class values and approach to creation challenge institutions of power and capitalist systems, integrating the commons – from the global scale to the daily experience – into both her life and work.
Tina Stefanou: You Can’t See Speed is presented across ACCA’s four galleries (and bathrooms), transforming the building into a living instrument.
It’s a haptic, tactile labyrinth of sculptures, films, live performances and dirt bikes.
Central to the exhibition is a new film and sculptural commission with Cassar, as he rides dirt bikes in high performance contexts.
Alongside that, Stefanou presents a modified configuration of her body of work. The films form a complex ecology of multispecies, class realities and rural poetics, from migrant, farmer and youth perspectives.
Poetic vocal captions accompany the films, scripted and narrated with various collaborators including musicians, family members, friends and high-school students.
Tina Stefanou – You Can’t See Speed is at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 111 Sturt Street, Southbank VIC 3006 until June 9 2025.
