MAGNETIC EXCURSIONS_SOFT EDGES

> August, 2018

During 2018, soon after Therese and Kenzee finished their MFA studies at Sydney College of the Arts, and while Clare upgraded to a PhD at the same institution, the trio reconvened on the Country of the Wilyakali language group of the Barkandji (Paakantji) Nation - what is now known as Broken Hill.

Kenzee had relocated there at the beginning of 2018, and in May that year began running Cosmopolitan Decline as an artist’s studio and gathering place. Once a supermarket known as Everybody’s, it  contained a reference library, and hosted readings, talks, screenings, performances and showings.

Broken Hill is a city in the far west of the Australian state of New South Wales, popularly known as the “Silver City” due to its ongoing importance as a source of Ag-Pb-Zn, which have been mined here since the early 1880s. Its name is derived from the jagged outcropping of ore once visible as "the broken hill," and which is now replaced by slag and mullock heaps approximating the height of the original hill.

The city still rests heavily upon the fluctuating successes of mining operations and global commodities prices, and Cosmopolitan Decline sought to explore the interconnectedness of resource extraction and the community, and to bring to the surface histories and activities that shape this city, yet which occur beneath it and out of view.