In Conversation: David Sequeira & Rachel Kent

Together, David Sequeira and Rachel Kent will chart significant developments in Sequeira’s practice, drawing on key bodies of work presented in his new exhibition ‘History & Infinity’. The conversation will explore recurring themes in Sequeira’s work including the language of colour, space, and geometry; relationships between colour and music; mysticism, the sacred, and the esoteric; and disrupting hierarchies and narratives of art history.

David Sequeira works across media to explore issues around high and low art, personal and shared histories, banality and profundity, the reverberations of colonisation, and the persisting impact of incomplete histories. Curatorship – articulating the intersections between objects, time, place, and space – is an important aspect of his art practice. David has held senior positions in public cultural institutions including the National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery of Australia, National Film and Sound Archive, Australian Parliament House and Old Parliament House, Canberra. He is currently the director of the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, University of Melbourne.

Rachel Kent is an experienced arts leader, art historian and head curator with extensive experience working with international museums and cultural institutions. She is currently CEO of Bundanon Trust, a unique site for creativity, research and connection to living cultures embedded within the landscape of Shoalhaven, NSW. Prior to this, she was chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia for over two decades, where she led the curatorial team, delivered artistic vision and programs, and advocated for the institution nationally and internationally.

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Presented in conjunction with David Sequeira: History & Infinity at UNSW Galleries, 18 August – 19 November 2023.