EVENT: SWAMPED
To celebrate the Year of Biodiversity, the Australian Museum is hosting a rather strange performance by theatre group the Masters of Space and Time in the Skeleton Gallery. Set in 1866, it opens with the unveiling of the latest acquisition of the Victoria Acclimitisation Society, the Brazilian agouti. Sound mysterious? Before we get bogged down in details, let’s find out more …
Who are the Masters of Space and Time?
Either a creative collective from Melbourne or the secret masters of time and space. You decide.
How do you go about telling a story about a Brazilian rodent?
We felt a play exploring the nineteenth century Victorian Acclimitisation society and their sometimes farcical attempts to ‘civilise’ the Australian bush would best be served by producing a Victorian farce, in Victorian times, set in Victoria. The Brazilian rodent simultaneously manages to be the catalyst of the play, the overriding focus of the action, the primary fact of the story and largely absent.
It sounds like there is a moral to the story of Swamped …
The immediate message that comes to mind seems banal: always ensure your rodent cage is tooth-proof. I suppose one could also read some lesson about the folly of imagining that one can anticipate, much less control, the consequences arising from hubristic interference in complex systems. There is a Law of Unintended Consequences that humans ignore at their peril, and Murphy’s Law – that the worst scenario is the most likely – is hopelessly optimistic; nothing is that certain.
Nov 16 & 18, Australian Museum, 6 College St, $10-15, 9320 6342, australianmuseum.net.au
