Carla
Zimbler
Biography
Carla Zimbler bends light across interior and exterior architecture and soaks sculptural forms in vivid textures as a live performative experience. Her site-specific installations shift orientation and perspective to redefine spatial boundaries and transcend the every day, kindling a desire for otherworldly places. Zimbler invites audiences to examine abstract ephemera and contemplate the intricacies of the micro and macro, and cosmic worlds we exist in.
Utilising creative technology and generative software Zimbler explores luminous phenomena where bodies are drawn into immersive spaces where sound-responsive visuals expand, burst and dissolve. These intimate, experiential worlds explore concepts regarding emotional connectedness, symbiosis, metaphorical lightness and darkness, and other dualities.
Carla’s visual work has been featured at Sydney Opera House, National Gallery of Australia, Arts House, List í Ljósi, Reykjavík Winter Lights, Distortion Ø, VIVID and Sydney Biennale. As a VJ, her festival credits include Dour, LungA, Melbourne Music Week, Beyond the Valley, Field Day, Festival X, Inner Varnika, Something Unlimited, Wide Open Space and Art Not Apart. Carla has also designed stages and content for MESS Studio, PACT Centre, ACMI, Phoenix Central Park, Mixcloud, Boiler Room, W Hotel and Pretty–Soon. As an Artist-in-Residence, Carla has engaged with SÍM Reykjavík and the Centre for Projection Art. In 2022, Carla will invigilate the Australian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.
GRANDMOTHER, 2022
In the weeks after she passed, my grandmother sat by the edge of my bed at night and poured light around me. As the lingering shroud gradually dissolved, she would drift up to the ceiling and burst into a thousand glowing particles. I believed the stronger I held my gaze the more intact her form might appear. As if I could sculpt corporeal outlines with my eyes and flood the room with her syrupy perfume and scent of perfectly baked potatoes. I would wrestle sleeplessness in the hope of manifesting a resurrection, but as I succumbed to exhaustion, her luminous fragments slowly disappeared. In the dreams that followed, the insides of my eyelids became flooded with phosphorescence, and by the shoreline of my lashes, she bathed in the afterglow. Matriarchal guardianship and maternal connection, this is what I acknowledge as divinity. Light as a mother, light as healer and light kindling as sacrosanct. As I walk through dark streets and peer into candle-lit homes, there is quiet, peace and there is protection. And I remember the warmth and reverence of illumination.
GRANDMOTHER is a live audio-visual work which can be projection-mapped to exterior/interior surfaces or as a freestanding video installation during GSPF. It requires darkness and quiet to experience the visceral, meditative qualities of the piece and invites audiences to walk alongside glowing orbs of light. The artwork includes a custom soundscape.
Find out more about Carla Zimbler