‘Sitting at the Edge of Eternity’ was created during a residency at an explosives storage warehouse on the Maribyrnong River, known as Jack’s Magazine. In 1890 the warehouse was overstocked with 1000 tons of gunpowder. If Jack’s Magazine was to explode, its blast radius was estimated to reach the General Post Office on Bourke Street. In this exhibition this event is illustrated through, contrasting copper commonly used to make non-sparking tools for the munitions industry, with the marks and impressions left by explosions made with black powder. These materials balance destruction and suppression, mimicking the nineteenth-century public’s anxiety over whether Jack’s Magazine could control an explosion.

with a written response by Jake Treacy