Wiradjuri artist Joel Sherwood Spring combines a First Nations critical perspective with an interest in the logic and ethos of techocapitalism. In 2023, at the Institute of Modern Art, he won the Churchie with Diggermode, an audacious two-channel video essay which explores the world mining has made. Mining—in various forms—was its subject and process.
Sherwood Spring returns to the Institute with his sequel Diggermode 2. The video-installation project combines documentary and narrative filmmaking; archival materials, 3D-generated simulations, and sculptural elements. The work revolves around Kira, a drone operator at RAAF Edinburgh, who has just bought a Defence Housing Australia house in Northwest Quarter Estate in Adelaide’s Angle Park. The work traverses soldier-settlement histories, land-title registration, lifestyle vlogging, data-centre real-estate monopolies, and how Australia’s strategic position in the Pacific secures future rare-earth extraction.
Diggermode 2 is a joint project with the 2026 Adelaide Biennial. It has been curated by Ellie Buttrose and Robert Leonard, and supported by Creative Australia, the Keir Foundation, and IMA Commissioners Circle.
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