“Water becomes both a material and a way of thinking through movement, instability and relation”.
– Izabela Pluta

At the Newcastle Canoe Pool, a once-legible concrete relief map of the world was broken apart by a storm in the 1970s. Its rubble was removed and dumped in the harbour, contributing to local myths of the movement of people and materials from around the globe. By casting the pool’s fractured edges and recording underwater acoustics while swimming, Pluta explores the Canoe Pool’s conditions of loss, erosion, and discard. In the Baltic context in Szczecin, Pluta has collaborated with scientists at the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot, using echo-sounders to translate seabed, bubbles and anthropogenic noise into acoustic images.

This attention to oceanic movement extends to Cavitation: Breathing Ocean, a major public installation of marine floats gathered from Far North Queensland, on the lands of the Dingaal people. Carried across vast distances by intersecting currents before washing ashore, each float is a physical record of oceanic circulation and global drift. Assembled into a temporary constellation, drift matter forms an alternative cartography shaped not by borders, but by the movements of water, tracing entangled routes of ecology, trade and migration.

Together, they also point to the growing environmental crisis of marine debris, carried by currents and accumulating along remote coastlines. Artist Izabela Pluta, born in Poland and based in Newcastle, draws on her own experience of migration and her connection to water as a swimmer and diver. Her work explores how water carries people, objects and histories across places, and how ideas of home and belonging can shift over time. Pluta’s installation returns a different kind of map to this historic site—one drawn by ocean currents, movement and chance.

Accompanying the installation is a spoken-word sound work written and voiced by cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis, reflecting on the sea as a place of memory, connection and change—and on breathing as something we share with the watery world.

Don’t miss this immersive installation at Newcastle’s Canoe Pool. Swim alongside and move among the floating forms as they drift, gather and separate. Slow down, take a breath and experience this familiar location in a new way.

Presented across The Lock-Up and Newcastle’s Canoe Pool, this large-scale project unfolds through two connected experiences: Cavitation, an exhibition at The Lock-Up, and Cavitation: Breathing Ocean, an interactive floating installation on the water. Together, they bring sculpture, photography, moving image, tapestry and sound into dialogue, exploring how tides, pressure, and migration shape our world and our lives.

ACCESSIBILITY
A lifeguard will be on duty during operating hours. Children must be supervised by a parent or guardian at all times.
The Canoe Pool offers wheelchair access at the main entrance, accessible toilets, and designated accessible street parking. Limited public seating is available.

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.