Pulau (Island)Melanie Lane

Pulau is a site-specific response to Yayoi Kusama’s iconic body of work. Commissioned especially for Asia TOPA and the National Gallery of Victoria’s landmark Yayoi Kusama exhibition, Pulau is performed in the NGV’s Great Hall, beneath Kusama’s seminal installation Dots Obsession 1996/2024.

On the floor below the installation sits an island. In this dark, inky haven, three bodies appear. With eyes glowing, they perform a ritual of metamorphosis and endurance; merging and transforming into mythic figures to embody acts of resistance, pleasure and protection. Pulau draws on the notion of the island as a place of secrets: an abundant source of metaphor, fantasy and allegory.

Pulau is a reflection on Melanie Lane’s encounter with the work of Kusama, whose obsession with the obliteration of the body and immersive world-building echo that of Lane’s own choreographic work. Seeking to forge a connection between the body and environment, Pulau highlights a tension between the earth as a site of resistance and Kusama’s ethereal cloud-like sculpture.

Obliteration vs transformation. In Pulau, the island is a blank slate; a home, a paradise, an escape. A postcolonial space and a site of resistance. Marginal. Vulnerable. Hazardous.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience the NGV after-hours, encountering Kusama’s works Dancing Pumpkin and Narcissus Garden in the NGV foyer spaces as you arrive, before being invited in to witness Lane’s site-specific performance.