Conor Ackhurst invites us to mull on the immediate moments prior to disaster via sculpture and installation at Soft Commodity in Warren Street.
Betraying tensions of past and present, precipitating the unexpected happening in its own time, Crumple Zone extrapolates the societal from the individual, the individual from the collective and spiritual, and how each of us are folded, or crumpled, into the macrocosms which generate and maintain us.
Thematically zoning in on the immediate moments before tragedy – car to collide with train, deer in headlights – the viewer becomes a star witness, encouraged to meditate on the causes of disaster. Caught anticipating the crash, the viewer can either mull on the outcome, or on the poorly-planned present which leads to the outcome. The viewer can guess how this may apply to lives of their own, or the world around them.
Conor Ackhurst reminds us to expect everything; potential can be realised at any point, tensions always break, and things always fall apart. By properly digesting the immediate moments before turmoil, we can either learn how to avoid and prevent, or how to allow and accept.