10/10/2026
Sunday Stories: The Art of Death | Post 7
What does it mean to mourn a forest?
This week, we're visiting Requiem in Power (RIP) by Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki and Olive Guardiani, at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre in Melbourne's north.
The exhibition begins with an unexpected idea: a death notice for a stand of trees.
Cleared to make way for a solar farm, these trees once provided food and habitat for swift parrots, cockatoos and flying foxes. The artists have created a memorial plaque for the trees, sculptures that resemble both tree trunks and electrical insulators, and delicate glass works containing traces of the natural world that was lost.
Beside the solar farm sits Preston Cemetery. Solar panels on one side, headstones on the other.
The exhibition doesn't tell us what to think about renewable energy. Instead, it asks who gets remembered, who gets mourned, and whose loss goes unmarked.
We have established rituals for human death. What about the loss of a forest and the living things that depended on it?
See it for yourself:
📍 Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, 7 Prospect Hill Drive, Bundoora
📅 Until Saturday 24 October 2026
🎟️ Free entry.
The artists will also present Commemorative Memory Acts, a free performance on Saturday 17 October, from 1–2pm. Registration is available through Darebin Arts.
Each Sunday, Critical Info shares another story, artwork, artist or idea that helps us look at death a little differently.
What does art about death make you think about?
