Dust motes, it turns out, are born performers. They have humble staging requirements, too. Just give them an eye-high beam of light and a dark room and they’ll spin, sparkle, prance and pirouette so energetically that, says Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno, “people come to me and say, ‘What did you put in the air?’” Despite the illusion of prismatic colour, his installation – titled Particular Matter(s) – is “just the dust”.
Mona’s major new exhibition of Saraceno’s work, Oceans of Air, will occupy all three of the lutruwita (Tasmania) institution’s touring galleries until July next year. The dancing dust is in the first of 10 rooms; it is an effective way to initiate people into Saraceno’s art, which is all about new ways to see – and hopefully to save – the world.
