Angelica Mesiti
A Communion of Stranger Gestures

Produced to accompany Relay Leagues, a major solo exhibition commissioned by Artspace Sydney in 2017, Angelica Mesiti: A Communion of Stranger Gestures is the first significant monograph chronicling the practice of one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists.

The work Relay Leagues takes as its departure point a Morse code message transmitted by the French Navy on 31 January 1997 to signal the imminent demise of this communication method. Morse code, which entailed a system of dot and dash radio signals and was often utilised as a language of distress at sea, was phased out after 130 years in favour of new digital communications. Inspired by this final poetic phrase, here Mesiti interprets its original dots and dashes through music, choreography, non-verbal communication and sculpture.

Angelica Mesiti: A Communion of Stranger Gestures includes text from Justin Clemens and François Quintin, contributions from Alexie Glass-Kantor, Michelle Newton, Talia Linz, JD Reforma, Lola Pinder and Elyse Goldfinch (Artspace, Sydney), Jacqueline Doughty and Melissa Keys (Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne), and Angela Goddard and Bree Richards (Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane).