Exhibition Opening: Dark Matter 2025
photo access
Join us for the opening of Dark Matter 2025 to celebrate the work of our 2025 Dark Matter Residents Joshua Catanzariti, Danica Chappell, Kristian Häggblom and Bingham Thurgate.
Date: Thursday, 23 October
Time: 6-8pm
Event artists
Danica Chappell
Danica Chappell is a visual artist working on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri in Naarm (Melbourne). In her darkroom studio, Danica draws from a slow, thoughtful exchange between matter and action to explore processes of photography. The darkroom invites the plasticity of time and welcomes a slip of form from its convention. Here the viewer’s perception is held to consider abstraction and the cameraless activity undertaken between light and light-sensitivity.
In recent years Danica’s work has appeared in group and solo exhibitions including – Colour Bleeds and Light Folds 2023, Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now 2023, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Bloomington In., USA, Thickness of Time at Heide III MoMA Project Gallery 2018-19, New Matter: Recent Forms of Photography 2016, AGNSW Sydney, Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph 2016, Govett-Brewster, New Plymouth NZ and recently completed commissioned installations include Slippery Images 2023 for NGV’s Melbourne Now and Far From The Eye 2021 for PHOTO2021.
Danica is represented by Sous Les Etoiles, New York USA
Joshua Catanzariti
Joshua is an emerging artist based in Canberra, Australia. Graduating from the University of Canberra in 2021 with a Bachelor of the Built Environment in Interior Architecture. His artistic practice explores the themes of space, perception, abstraction and dreams, often manifested through installations and photo media.
Since graduation, he has actively participated in the local and international art scene, undertaking residencies in Japan at both Studio Kura (Itoshima) and Space Department (Nara) in 2023. His work has also been featured in group shows in Japan and Australia, including Concurrent Gallery in Canberra, Skyroof during Fuji Textile Week, and the Itoshima Art Farm expo. His early work was recognised with a win in the 2021 Ainslie Av Bus Shelter Design Competition.
Kristian Häggblom
Dr Kristian Häggblom is an artist, academic, independent curator and photobook collector who works with conceptual documentary and expanded modes of photography that have included/combined sound, collected objects, video, text, publishing, performance and commissioned production. He completed his undergraduate studies in 1997 (RMIT) and his PhD, titled Viewing Platforms, in 2014 (Monash University). He has worked extensively in Japan and undertaken an Australia Council for the Arts artist-in-residence on Suomenlinna in Finland. His work has been exhibited internationally including exhibitions in Australia, Japan, America, India, Mexico, India and Switzerland and is held in substantial collections. Häggblom established the image-text project Two Inadequate Voices and is working on a collaborative exhibition and associated symposia between Kuwait, Japan and Australia titled Speculative Horizons. He is presently the Higher Education Course Director at Photography Studies College, Melbourne.
Bingham Thurgate
Bingham Thurgate is a Melbourne/Naarm photographic-based artist exploring the connectivity of personal truth and environmental relationships aroused by both external and internal immersion. Nodding to the experience of sentience, his works interweave as manifestations of an intuitive response to one’s internal and external landscapes. The environments and experiences of the familiar, new or old, act as mirrors or doors as means to understand these feelings and how they relate to our perception and identity.
Since graduating with a Diploma of Photography and Digital Imaging from NCAT Preston in 2022 his work has been exhibited in various group exhibitions around Melbourne/Naarm.
