Requiem in Power (RIP) is a collaborative exhibition by Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki and Olive Guardiani. Grounded in material, ecological, and existential concerns, it brings together two neighbouring sites: the La Trobe Solar Farm and Preston Cemetery. One site converts sunlight into electricity, its panels angled toward net zero. The other holds death and mourning through gravestones, quiet, enduring forms embedded in the city.
The project considers how landscapes are shaped by industry and technology, while remaining bound to human ritual and mortality. Solar panels and gravestones sit as parallel structures of need. Together, they frame cycles of energy, memory, and transformation.
At the centre of the work is the clearing of mature trees to make way for the solar farm. Their absence lingers. It registers as a form of collective grief, extending the language of the cemetery beyond human life. Loss here is ecological and social, reshaping habitat, shade, and shared space.
The exhibition unfolds as a study of time and relation. Through sculpture, it traces the entanglement of human and more-than-human worlds.
Join us at the opening event for Requiem in Power (RIP) on Sat 4 July 2pm – 4pm, click here for more details. Free to attend, all welcome.
About the artists
Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki is an artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). Working across sculpture, installation, sound, performance, and moving image. Her practice traces life cycles, mortality, and more-than-human relations. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from Monash University. She received the Ian Potter Grant (2025) and the Majlis Scholarship (2018). She has undertaken residencies in China, the USA, and France.
Exhibitions include Recipes for Survival (with Ava Clifforth, 2025), World Mediation (tcb, 2022), and Shifting Forces (CAVES, 2022). Earlier exhibitions include, Hard Boiled (Neon Parc, 2019) and Thank U, Next: Honoring and Celebrating Life (Cathedral Cabinet, 2019).
Olive Guardiani shapes forms through casting the mould making, balancing endurance and fragility. She lingers on what lies beneath the surface, in states of transformation or quiet retention. Each work emerges as both futuristic and unearthed, tracing the shifting relationships of time, body, and the ground.
Image: Gabrielle Skye Nehrybecki and Olive Guardiani, Requiem in Power (RIP) (detail – obituary) 2026
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