ADELAIDE.- Adelaide Contemporary Experimental is presenting Anarchive: Gut-feeling, a major exhibition bringing together eleven new commissions alongside rarely-seen historic works. Presented at ACE, 8 May to 27 June 2026, the exhibition invites artists and audiences to engage with experimental art histories in proximity to new performance, moving image, sound works and embodied experiences.

Developed as part of curator Sasha Grbich’s ongoing research into women’s contributions to experimental art in South Australia, Anarchive: Gut-feeling forms part of the Experimental Art Anarchive project – a partnership between ACE, Flinders University Museum of Art (FUMA) and Artlink.

Bringing contemporary artists into conversation with historic experimental works, the exhibition rethinks the idea of the archive as something fixed or complete. Anarchive: Gut-feeling approaches history as open and evolving – shaped through reinterpretation, collaboration and ongoing experimentation. New commissions are made and presented in proximity to historic works and archival material, creating new relationships between past and present.

Live and recorded performances, sound, moving image and participatory works encourage visitors to connect through feeling, curiosity and shared encounter. The exhibition emphasises process and experimentation, revealing how ideas are tested, revisited and developed over time.

Alongside newly commissioned works, the exhibition includes historic moving image, performance and documentation by artists whose contributions to experimental art have often been overlooked or underrepresented. By bringing these works back into focus, Anarchive: Gut-feeling highlights gaps in the historical record and creates opportunities to reconsider how experimental art histories are collected, recorded and remembered. Selected historic films and documentation are presented publicly for the first time in decades, offering rare access to works that have remained largely unseen since their original presentation.

New works by Troy-Anthony Baylis, Jingwei Bu, Brad Darkson, Aidan Hughes, Oriana Julie, Jazmine Deng + Helium Liu, V Barratt + Grace Marlow, Ariella Napoli, Tikari Rigney, Tayer Stead and Shenshen Zheng are presented in conversation with early moving image works by Margaret Dodd, Aleks Danko + Joan Grounds, Richard Larter (featuring Pat Larter), VNS Matrix, Sandra Greentree Nicolaides, Jill Orr, Bronwyn Platten, Jacky Redgate, Sue Richter, and an extensive library of performance documentation.

“Experimental art histories are not fixed or complete”, says curator Sasha Grbich, “Many important works and artists – particularly women – were overlooked in collecting practices. This exhibition brings those histories into conversation with contemporary artists, creating new encounters that allow us to reconsider what has been kept in archives and how they continue to evolve.”

“Anarchive: Gut-feeling brings together artists working across installation, performance, sound and moving image to explore experimental art as something lived and experienced,” says ACE Artistic Director Danni Zuvela. “The exhibition and live program explores the concept of the “anarchistic archive” as a provocation to imagine a more socially just archive, thinking with history in a way that is productive, participatory and celebratory.”

Artists: Troy-Anthony Baylis, Jingwei Bu, Brad Darkson, Margaret Dodd, Aleks Danko and Joan Grounds, Aidan Hughes, Oriana Julie, Jazmine Deng + Helium Liu, Richard Larter (featuring Pat Larter), V Barratt and Grace Marlow, VNS Matrix, Ariella Napoli, Sandra Greentree Nicolaides, Jill Orr, Bronwyn Platten, Jacky Redgate, Sue Richter, Tikari Rigney, Tayer Stead, Shenshen Zheng

Curators: Sasha Grbich, Danni Zuvela