I went to First Site in search of Aleksander Morris’s Memory Tides. I got a taste of the show at this year's Emerging Artist Awards and was keen to see how it would come together in its entirety. I came away loving every moment of the four shows on view at the moment. The through line flowing through them makes it hard to focus on only one. In having them all together in that subterranean space - cool and dry where Melbourne couldn’t decide if it should pour or shine outside, tram rattles and street chatter filtering through the open door - the shows amalgamated, becoming more than their own islands of memory and grief. 

Curated by British born RMIT lecturer Jennifer Conroy Smith, Sensory Clay does not break boundaries as a group show, but does showcase promising artists from RMIT’s talent pool. On the whole, I found the show exciting. Ceramics is an under-represented field, but something I find is gaining more and more traction as emerging artists gain support. In particular, artists playing with form and blurring the barriers of materiality will be my enduring memory of this show.

In the nook of First Site is Xinshuo Zhuo’s Unnatured. Presented alongside three other exhibitions, Zhuo’s is the quietest. The works did not strike me at first sight, it was only in sitting with them- getting closer and truly taking my time that the detail and nuance struck me. Going back through them, finding the motifs (the butterflies, the obscured sun, the faceless woman, the hair) I wanted more. What Zhuo captures with analogue photography feels like nothing that could be imitated with modern means. There is a delicacy to the exhibition.