Image: Toni Hassan, Behold, the Rainbow Cale (Heteroscarus acroptilus), detail, 2025, courtesy of the artist
March 27 - May 15, 2026
Opening event: Friday, March 27, 5:30-7:30pm
Gallery I, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta
Free entry, all welcome
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You can find Toni’s exhibition in The Mill’s Gallery I, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill’s entrance has a small step into the building. We have a ramp available, please ring the doorbell and our friendly team will assist you.
During gallery hours, our entrance will be unlocked. If the door is closed, please ring the doorbell to alert our team.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
We are excited to present The Sea is Talking, a new exhibition by Toni Hassan. In this exhibition Toni works across multiple modalities to honour the lives of the countless marine creatures, some of which she witnessed dead, or struggling, as the South Australian coastline became impacted by the harmful algal bloom. Her regular walks along the city’s shoreline have revealed the incredible biodiversity of our local waters, sparking curiosity as well as sadness.
Through large scale coloured pencil drawings, video, and mixed media installation, Toni creates a feeling within the gallery akin to the emotional response she has had on the beach. We feel the physicality of the experience: a sense of awe, coupled with grief. We get a sense of the tide as it often was, washing in with creamy foam, and we observe an eel in a gripping dance, fighting for breath. Toni ponders our current environmental realities, positioning the algal bloom as a barometer for our world, asking, 'If the sea is talking, who's listening?' Further, 'What does it mean to truly listen?'
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Toni Hassan is an award-winning visual artist and writer. She is committed, in her multidisciplinary practice, to being a witness, seeking to express interconnections and inspire care. In her drawing, painting, digital and installation work she investigates contemporary events, patterns of human relating and nature (including non-human centric perspectives).
This is Toni’s third solo show since she graduated from the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University in 2021. Her artwork is held in public and private collections.
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These works respond to what I encountered on walks along the beaches of Adelaide’s Gulf of St Vincent and south, along the Fleurieu Peninsula in 2025. I felt the sea was talking. Countless marine creatures appeared, like secrets of the sea. Their appearance provoked both pathos and surprising awe and delight.
All life forms have intrinsic value, independent of their utility to us. Environmental events challenge us at many levels, as planet Earth talks. With the harmful algal bloom, I began to wonder, again, ‘What is mine to do?’ I was provoked to consider the role of ecological ethics that can be expressed through art. As Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman argue in their introduction to Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief (2017), it is vital to "disrupt the dominance of humans and expand the circle of the grievable beyond the human.”
Drawing allowed for a meditation on nature’s beauty and abundance, and our interconnectedness and dependence on nature. While hearing nature groan, there was something about noticing contour and shape, colour and texture, that helped open up space to move from disenchantment to enchantment. Material collected along the seashore inspired other work that allowed for play, helping process my sense of loss and to express hope of renewal.
