Pendulum (θ2)
Pendulum (θ2) returns this August, with its most ambitious program to date, transforming NAUTI Studios into a series of three unique one-night-only contemporary art experiences.
Bringing together 39 local and emerging artists working across sound, image, installation, sculpture, printmaking, film, and live performance, each event presents a completely new exhibition design, curatorial direction, and live music program. No two events are the same.
… Set within the immersive bunker-like surrounds of “The Deep” at Nauti Studios.
15.08.26
Helen Zhu, Jasmine Anderson, Mercedes, Monika Cvitanovic, Riri, Rob Joyner, Sophia Olivieri, Stevie Dub & Soulie, Tinovonga, Wee Wen Yu, Yanti Peng, & Zzarni.
Growing up Australian-born Chinese, Helen struggled with cultural conflict and identity. As an attempt to assimilate into Western culture, Helen grew to resent their own heritage, often rejecting any ideologies associated with Chinese culture. Helen Zhu utilises her art practice to explore the emotional guilt of abandoning her culture as a child, re-embracing and celebrating her cultural identity. Traditional Chinese dragon imagery plays a major role in Helen’s paintings. The Dragon, a deeply revered and benevolent symbol of luck and strength in Chinese culture, becomes a symbol of resilience as Helen fully embraces her own unique identity. Her practice also incorporates the Western aesthetic of abstract expressionism alongside elements of traditional Chinese imagery that investigate her personal experiences of diaspora.
Mercedes Vukovich (b. 2003) is an emerging artist practising on Gadigal land. Her practice is informed by Julia Kristeva’s Theory of Abjection outlined in her essay The Powers of Horror, in her chapter on ‘’The Improper / Unclean’’ she describes the corpse seen without God or outside of science is the utmost of abjection, it is death infecting life.
Jasmine Anderson is a Sydney based artist. Within her ceramics practice, she works organically with the clay to create emotionally resonant forms that combine elements of both the figural and the figurative. Jasmine is drawn to crude and imperfect mark making, which is a deliberate and valued element of her work alongside the painterly application of underglaze. Her sculptures often take the form of imagined characters and emotional landscapes. They function as symbolic meditations that investigate memory, storytelling and personal reflection.
Yanti Peng, 彭妍缇 is a Hainan-born interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, film, photography, and 3D computer tools. She decodes the functions of power embedded in the everyday, navigating the labyrinth of truth and consciousness through humour, absurdism, and magical realism. She likens her interconnected practice and systems thinking to the body’s fascial system.
Monika Cvitanovic is an artist working across expanded painting and textiles. Her practice is driven by an interest in the tactile, the provisional, and the ways in which textile methodologies can complicate the conventions of pictorial space. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally in a range of group exhibitions.
Wee Wen Yu is an artist living and working on Darug Land. Her work spans the disciplines of clothing, sculpture, and performance art. Through the themes of meditation and mediation, she explores time, place and belonging.
Tinovonga is a Zimbabwean-Australian producer and DJ who thrives on spontaneity. Rooted in gospel and R&B, each set branches across genres, blending soulful grooves with high-energy selections. Expect a journey through dance floor staples, R&B classics, original productions, and, of course, at least one mandatory Waka Flocka track.
Zzarni is a Thai/Burmese beatmaker and street photographer based on Bidjigal and Gadigal land. His vast sample exploration across the many soundscapes and crates of the world is effortlessly re-envisioned into bass heavy hip-hop, jazzy abstract percussion tunes, deep soul cuts and exclusive flips. Well known for his SP404 sets which solely exhibit beats that live in the limbo of his google drive, zzarni has weaved his artistry into the fabric of Sydney’s diverse music scene.
Soulie and Stevie Dub are reggae enthusiasts based in the Inner West of Sydney. They met and connected through a shared love of dub, sound system and the Ocarina of Time.
Stevie Dub is the builder and founding member of Inner West Reggae Disco Machine, a hand built reggae sound system putting on reggae parties and playing around Australia since 2013. Soulie is an avid record collector and flute player. Expect a strictly vinyl selection ranging from classic Jamaican roots and dub to more modern sounds mixed with live Flute accompaniment and effects.
Riri is a Japanese–Australian DJ whose sets are rooted in groove, storytelling, and deep musical lineage. Raised in a home filled with R&B, soul, hip-hop and funk, she blends generations of sound with a crate-digger’s ear and an instinctive feel for the room.
Rob Joyner is a veteran of Sydney’s underground electronic scene, with a live performance history spanning over 30 years and across many genres. A pioneer of body-focused machine music, Rob cut his teeth in the Eora anarcho free-party movement that birthed the “Doof”. Playing solo or as a member of Non Bossy Posse he’s shared stages with legends like Shackleton, Aphex Twin, and Onu-sound.