Fell Star is an exhibition about meteorites, atmospheric and extraterrestrial events, and the curious half-truths which arise from things that fall from the sky. The exhibition centres on a meteorite, suspended within a cardboard tomb/shrine/altar, where it splits, splices, and branches the other works in the gallery.
Drawing on science fiction stories which centre on corrupting extra-terrestrial forces (such as A Colour Out of Space, Roadside Picnic, and Annihilation) Fell Star proposes that a meteorite’s ‘fall’ is not just its collision with our planet, but also its slow digestion into bureaucratic systems of scientific categorisation, material sovereignty, and market value. Its fall is complete when it is interred in the basement of a museum, neatly catalogued, and ‘known’ within the corpus of scientific knowledge.
The exhibition’s architectural features are used to invoke both religious spaces and colonial institutions. Australia’s superficial Neoclassicism (which bears little regard for the genres of architectural history) further conflates these institutions together, representing the intertwined religious, geopolitical, and scientific arms of Australian colonisation. While the visibly fake meteorite seems contained, held within its hulking cardboard temple, it also appears to be quietly corrupting the systems which seek to possess it, undermining the very forces which lend it prominence.
Fell Star was shown at the Adelaide Central Gallery from February 13 to March 22, 2024. All images courtesy of Sam Roberts.
