NEW ANNUAL / Cavitation Spotlight Talks
11-11:30am, 27th September – 4th October, 2026
Tickets: FREE – capacity is limited, book now
Short, engaging talks unpacking key ideas in Cavitation, from fractured maps to oceanic rhythms, offering new ways of seeing and sensing the work.
To Form a Map That Will Not Hold Still
Cavitation: Spotlight Talks
Sundays 27 September & 4 October, 11-11.30am
Curious to learn more? Join us for a relaxed guided tour of Cavitation.
How do we locate ourselves within a world continually remade by movement?
Beginning with the lost concrete world map once embedded in Newcastle Canoe Pool, this focused 30-minute talk follows the fractured coastlines, displaced materials and unstable geographies running through Cavitation.
Discover how Izabela Pluta draws upon mapping, migration and environmental change to question the apparent authority of fixed coordinates.
Moving between Muloobinba/Newcastle and the Baltic waterways surrounding Szczecin, the exhibition proposes place not as something settled, but as something continually reorganised through memory, movement and encounter.
No prior knowledge of contemporary art is required. This talk is for curious first-time visitors, practising artists and anyone interested in how maps and images shape what we know about the world.
ACCESSIBILITY
- The Lock-Up offers wheelchair access at the main entrance, a unisex accessible toilet, and designated accessible street parking. Seating is available, however, if you require a seat and there isn’t one available, please let a staff member know.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Cavitation and Cavitation: Breathing Ocean are major commissions initiated and led by The Lock-Up, Newcastle, and presented in partnership with New Annual 2026.
Izabela Pluta has been awarded a Creative Australia Visual Arts Major Commission grant through the international co-commissioning partnership of The Lock-Up and TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Poland.
The Lock-Up and this project are supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, Create NSW, and New Annual 2026.
Collaborators and project partners include the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Adam Hulbert; sound artist, composer, researcher and performer, cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis, Ocean Seagull, Tangaroa Blue Foundation, the Institute of Oceanology, Plastic Collective Foundation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Hunter Gatherer Network, Event Engineering, Heritage Stoneworks at the NSW Department of Planning, Clyde Street Precinct, Housing and Infrastructure, UNSW Art & Design, and AX Interactive.
Izabela Pluta is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert.
Cavitation and Cavitation: Breathing Ocean form part of The Lock-Up’s 2026 curatorial season, A Call Across the Universe. Through sound, movement, image and encounter, artists and audiences are invited to tune in to new frequencies of understanding and exchange.
