At PICA we recognise that we are situated within the unceded lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We pay our respects and offer our gratitude to Elders past and present. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of their care and continued connection to culture, community and Country.

Always was, always will be.

Galleries are open 12–5pm. Our exhibitions are always free.

Chen He, Sonja Saxvik, Effie Vouris

Quick Response Residency

Quick Response Residency

During their Quick Response residency at PICA, Chen He, Sonja Saxvik and Effie Vouris reunite 30 years after first exhibiting together at PICA in 1996. Working across performance, installation, archive and time-based media, the residency explores how artistic practices evolve across time, distance and divergent trajectories. 

Through conversation, archival material, handmade publications, slideshow assemblages and performative actions, the artists will develop an evolving installation that activates memory and dialogue as creative methods.  

Bringing together practices now based across Perth, Lithgow (NSW) and Elands (NSW), the residency reflects on how connection and exchange are sustained across geographically dispersed lives and practices.

About the artists

Chen He is a China-born artist based in Perth, Australia. Her practice is grounded in Eastern philosophy and contemporary conceptual art, exploring the interconnected relationships between people, history, nature and time. 

In her ongoing project, Ephemeral Echoes, she works with sound, material and perceptual shifts to investigate how traces of the past remain active in the present. In works such as Music Above the Alkimoa (Shipwreck), sound appears separated from its source, inviting attentive listening and reflection on memory, narrative and human presence. 

Incorporating materials such as charcoal, Chen engages with geological time as layered and continuous. Her installations encourage viewers to consider perception, history and the environment, proposing listening as a form of care and care as a way of relating to memory, place and shared human experience. 

Sonja Saxvik is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans painting, photography, installation and film. Her practice is informed by mythology, the natural world and human connection to environment and narrative.

Saxvik has undertaken artist residencies at the Art and Nature Retreat on Flinders Island, Tasmania (2016) and at the Centre d’Art i Natura de Farrera, Spain (2019). Saxvik’s work often considers the dialogue between place, story and imagination, creating immersive experiences that reflect the interconnectedness of culture and environment.

Saxvik also works with the NSW Department of Education, delivering Creative and Performing Arts programs within special education, integrating artistic practice with pedagogy to foster engagement, creativity and inclusive learning. 

Effie Vouris is a contemporary artist working across performance, installation and mixed media. Often shaped by place, Vouris’s practice explores the body’s relationship to land, tracing spiritual, ecological, mythological and cultural connections between humans and other species. Through immersive environments, ritualised presence and sensory experiences, Vouris creates reflective spaces where audiences encounter subtle interplays between landscape, spirit and shared existence. 

Working with natural materials and found objects, Vouris’s works foreground relational and ephemeral qualities, highlighting the interdependence between human life, other species and natural systems. Drawing from lived experiences alongside animals, Vouris considers them not as symbols but as co-inhabitants, teachers and witnesses. Vouris invites viewers to reconsider their connection to land and more-than-human life, fostering an embodied awareness of coexistence, care and mutual belonging. 

Supporters

PICA’s Studio Program is supported by PICA’s Art Ambassador donors.