CELESTON 3 MoB (Museum of Brisbane)
On their third invitation from MoB, Man&Wah presented Celeston 3 as part of the group exhibition Rearranged: Art of the Flower, featuring over 20 artists. Reflecting Brisbane’s subtropical climate, the exhibition explores strong traditions of floral and botanical imagery, engaging themes of place, memory, and history through painting, textiles, sculpture, ceramics, and new media. For the exhibition Man&Wah created Celeston 3, a large-scale video installation (from their ongoing Celeston series) presented in the Clem Jones Gallery. The immersive 30-minute video work spanned 8 metres wall-to-wall/floor-to-ceiling within a black room, accompanied by custom-built bench seating and subtle neon lighting integrated throughout the space. To enhance the Celeston 3 experience Man&Wah collaborated with cosmic composer Jonn Serrie, whose ambient soundscape subtly fills the refined minimalist gallery environment.
(Below images & videos) Various elements from the Celeston 3 video work, imagery created from floral and mineral objects captured by Man&Wah which is then processed into moving visuals.
(Above image) The audience would journey though the entire exhibition amongst vibrant botanical artworks arriving at the very end of the MoB space to the The Clem Jones Gallery – here they enter through a neon lit portal entrance into an ambient and dark cosmic-like space that opens up to the Celeston 3 video work and to the etheric soundscape by Jonn Serrie.
(Above two images) Inside the Clem Jones Gallery showing the two neon lit portal entrance frames that lead into the immersive space. As audiences enter the space and get taken sonically by the ambient soundscape of Jonn Serrie, they are invited to sit and relax on a custom-built bench (wrapped with subtle neon base lighting) and engage with the work at a contemplative pace. The 8 metre wide video work spans across the entire gallery wall, featuring a panoramic scene just after a transition of kaleidoscopic fractals which gradually morphs into a lush richly coloured montage of succulents.
(Below images: spheres) Sphere elements featured throughout Celeston 3 represent Earth’s five elements—Earth (soil, minerals etc), Water, Fire, Air, and Ether (Akash)—together manifest life. The sphere’s textures derive from imagery captured by Man&Wah which include - fire, clouds, minerals, and microscopic floral forms; all processed into evolving, moving visuals.
(Above image) A promotion banner for the exhibition featuring one of the hero shots from the Celeston 3 video work, the mandala wheel is made up with hundreds of flowers rotating and spinning into each other creating perfect geometric fractals, created from Man&Wah’s signature cosmic floral portraits (displayed directly below). The mandala symbolises the wheel of life and cycle of samsara, with the two smaller outer yellow and pink spheres representing the duality of existence. (Bottom images & video) More elements and snippets from the Celeston 3 video work.
We are made up of the minerals of the earth and cosmos