We would be wise to watch these jumpy artists as closely as budgerigars were watched down a coalmine. When they topple from the perch, it may already be too late to run for the lift-shaft. The sky will be transformed into an uncontained cloud of intelligence … the unimaginable imagined … These are the first seismic whispers. Soon it will be everywhere, overheard conversations with no human source. Soon we will all think it. —Iain Sinclair1 at the National Gallery of Victoria, the first major Australian solo exhibition of filmmaker and speculative designer Liam Young, invites us to imagine the unimaginable, to collectively explore challenging possible futures, and to ask whether they are extreme – or simply pragmatic. The show also reveals that Young may be one of the most intriguing Australian architects around. “Architecture,” he suggested during an enthralling July 2023 lecture at Melbourne School of Design, is “telling stories with and through space.”
The Ripple Effect
From our bird’s-eye view of Australian architecture, a growing social and environmental conscience is clearly evident. Architecture Media’s initiation of the ArchitectureAU Award for Social Impact aims to recognise this work across the industry and b
