Hard Core, Mona, 2026

Hard Core

Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), Tasmania, Australia, 2026

06 June 2026 – 29 March 2027
Curated by Jarrod Rawlins and Olivier Varenne

We tend to think of stone as silent, inert, eternal. Yet Hard Core reveals the lithic world as restless, vibrant and deeply entangled with us: our industries, our dreams, our breath. By entering the exhibition, the visitor steps into this planetary feedback loop.

Hard Core is not a linear display, but a landscape both geological and cinematic. Drifting through strata of sound, mineral, and images, each space is charged with a distinct atmosphere. Glacial erratics appear drilled and bandaged with alloys, their wounded surfaces recalling both extraction and trauma. Coal mirrors return a warped likeness—echoes of a reality distorted by combustion. Here, time thickens. Sculptures hum with oceanic memories, tectonic thresholds, and lithic fires. Fossils turn infinitely in vending machines, torn from deep time and trapped in cycles of desire. Volcanic shards, carved into concave lenses, suggest satellite dishes or divination tools, yet their answers remain elusive.

Hard Core insists we are not outside the lithosphere but part of its unfolding drama. It shows how our quests for permanence—cities, monuments, machines, markets—are built from matter with its own temporal logics and agency. The works leave an afterimage: the disquieting sense that stone, long cast as the opposite of life, may be among its most eloquent witnesses.

For more information, visit: https://mona.net.au/stuff-to-do/art/julian-charriere

All works by Julian Charrière. Installation view: Hard Core, Mona, Tasmania, Australia, 2026. ©The Artist / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photos by Jens Ziehe and Mona / Jesse Hunniford.