Image: Toni Hassan, *Behold, the Rainbow Cale (Heteroscarus acroptilus),* detail, 2025, Photo: Pro Lab, courtesy of the artist

Artist Forum

When: Friday, May 15, 5:30-7pm

Galleries, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, bookings essential

This artist led Forum will be in our Galleries, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Please arrive at 5:30pm for a 5:45pm dance performance by Sandy Marion, in response to the exhibition.
6-7pm the forum will take place.
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 invite you to join us for an artist led forum discussing the impact of the South Australian algal bloom, and opening a discussion about climate, ecologies, and our place in the world.

This forum builds on The Sea is Talking, a new exhibition by Toni Hassan currently Showing in Gallery I. Speakers include Toni Hassan, ecologist Dr Faith Coleman, and curator Lindl Lawton. The forum will also include a short performance by artist Sandy Marion in response to Toni Hassan’s exhibited video work Death Dance (Longfinned worm eel, Scolecenchelys breviceps).

As chair of the panel, Toni brings her curiosity, advocacy background and creative insights to a lively conversation with a panel of special cross-disciplinary guests, exploring how creative practice can open new ways of thinking, feeling and responding to environmental change.

She asks; In the wake of South Australia’s devastating algal bloom, how can art help us make sense of ecological loss? And as the planet warms, what practical and imaginative roles can South Australians play in caring for our marine ecosystems?

About the artists:

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.
Faith Coleman comes from a family of environmentalists and primary producers, with multiple generations of her family working on the ecology of salinas, saltlakes and estuaries, so she was (quite literally) born with her feet in saline muds. She spent her childhood exploring tidal deltas, in some of the most remote regions of Australia. She is passionate about developing deep understandings of estuarine processes, integrated approaches to estuarine management, adaptive management of landscapes to preserve ecological features, climate change adaptation and sustainable natural resource use. Faith has also published under the name Faith S. Cook.
Lindl Lawton has spent three decades in the cultural sector as an historian and museum curator, most notably as Senior Curator at the South Australian Maritime Museum. In 2016, she curated The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804, a touring exhibition of scientific artworks from French collections, sparking her interest in how art can deepen our understanding of the natural world.
Now Manager, Interpretation and Cultural Collections at the Adelaide Botanic Garden, she creates innovative ways to engage visitors with nature and foster environmental stewardship. Lindl manages the Museum of Economic Botany’s dynamic program of contemporary art exhibitions, where artists explore environmental challenges, respond to the Garden’s collections, and interrogate its colonial foundations. She is committed to creating programs where art, science, and community experience converge to illuminate urgent environmental issues.