Haunt / Christopher Kulendran Thomas: New Eelam: Brisbane

The Institute of Modern Art (IMA) is pleased to present a group exhibition, Haunt, alongside a solo show by Christopher Kulendran Thomas, curated by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, and assisted by Llewellyn Millhouse.

Haunt
In an age marked by mass migration, technologically accelerated dislocation, and rapid urban development, notions of home and belonging need to be imagined anew. At once located and displaced, how to live together is one of the crucial questions of our time. These ideas have even greater urgency in settler-colonial contexts where notions of ownership have very real consequences historically and in the present. Artists in this exhibition—Zanny Begg, Heman Chong, Fiona Connor, Megan Cope, Brian Jungen and Duane Linklater, Joar Nango, Christian Nyampeta, and Amie Siegel—present works focusing on the conceptions, creations, developments, and experiences of home as they are affected by colonialism, urban development, and gentrification. Ultimately, a growing population, changing climate, and dwindling natural resources demand that we re-imagine what our shared future can look like.

New Eelam: Brisbane
New Eelam is a long-term artwork in the form of a start-up—a real estate technology company founded by the artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas to develop a flexible global housing subscription based on collective co-ownership rather than individually owned private property. Originated in collaboration with curator Annika Kuhlmann, the venture takes as a starting point the art field’s involvement in the global processes through which cities around the world are transformed and explores how to reconfigure what art can actually do in the world structurally.

Sitting like a new development in a rapidly changing neighbourhood, New Eelam: Brisbane presents a sci-fi vision of an alternate reality. The speculative documentary, 60 million Americans can’t be wrong introduces the post-capitalist housing proposal and the political and historical horizons of the venture. Taking as a departure point the once self-governed—but now non-existent—homeland of “Eelam” from which the artist’s Sri Lankan Tamil family originates, the film explores how a new economic model could emerge out of the existing economic system rather than in opposition to it. Thomas’ first exhibition in Australia provides a timely opportunity to consider new possibilities for the architecture and experience of citizenship. New Eelam: Brisbane has been integrated locally through partnerships with landscape designer Pete Shields and ceramic artist Tim Wilson (Hunchmark).

About the Institute of Modern Art
Since 1975, the IMA has been one of Australia’s leading independent forums for art and its discourses. The IMA is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, the Australian Government through Australia Council for the Arts, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Federal, State, and Territory Governments.

Joar Nango’s participation in Haunt has been supported by the Office for Contemporary Art, Norway. Zanny Begg’s The Beehive is a co-commission of Artbank and ACMI and produced by Philippa Bateman Enigma Production. Christopher Kulendran Thomas, 60 Million Americans can’t be wrong (2018) in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann, was commissioned by the IMA, DIS, and Tensta konsthall.