Cassie Sullivan

To Travel

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‍To Travel, 2024 is about connecting, collecting and reassembling. The artist started this installation in conversation with the balga tree, also known as grass tree or Xanthorrhoea. The balga spoke in a fluid notion, of brittleness and strength, of holding on and giving up, of releasing and unravelling. From this beginning, and further conversation with Wardandi elder Nan Viv (Vivian Brockman-Webb), the artist has transitioned the balga to represent her own interpretation of the spirit making its way into the sky with a gradual incline and dispersion. The copper wire is a conduit for the story held in this interaction between Country and artist, and is designed to bring the audience into engagement with the work as it subtly responds to the movement of the viewer. 

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"A conversation with the grass tree.

About repetition, control and grief.

A deconstruction,

of layers and time."

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Out Breath

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Out Breath, 2024 is a temporal, site responsive installation of 217 medical gauze and dowel pieces. Within this installation the artist has found a place to begin processing her own vulnerable story of her stepfathers passing at the beginning of 2024, as well as her engagement with place while on residency at The Farm Margaret River. 

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The installation offers a space for the spirit of the wind to send messages on to loved ones passed and Cassie invites you to send your own messages on, whatever they might be, in the hopes that with the help of the spirits, they will find who needs to hear them. 

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Cassie Sullivan is a lutruwita/tasmanian Indigenous contemporary artist.