Push / Pull

Push / Pull is a program of live, experiential, post-object and otherwise “non-haveable” art, including tactile installation, short and durational performance works, lecture performance, re-enactments and responses to the archive, video, poetry, plants, food, voice, experimental sound and music.

Tension is important. Under too much load, things fray, and eventually snap. Too little tension, however, and there’s no push and no pull; only slackness. The right amount of tension can be productive - sharpening senses, attuning us to what is real, risky, and worthy of our attention. Experimental art thrives on tension, drawing its charge from confronting cliches, destabilising norms, proposing new modalities, and cultivating frisson.

Unpacking Adelaide’s leading role as the historical world centre of so-called “post-object art” today, Push / Pull asks: What kinds of encounters are possible, when “the shock of the new” is a local tradition? How can we “think with” the artistic radicalism of the past in ways that outpace old limitations while retaining experimental essences, and amplifying unruly energies? How can we build worlds within contemporary and experimental art around the act of being mutually present?

Push / Pull explores these and other tensions in an exhibition and live program offering points of connection with archival and contemporary “non-haveable” thought and practice.

Feature Image: Shan Michaels' studio (2025), detail, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental. Photography by Sam Roberts.