Julian Charrière descends into deep time with ‘Hard Core’ at Mona, Hobart

French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière presents his first solo exhibition in Australia with Hard Core, now on view at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania. Running from June 6th, 2026 to March 29th, 2027, the exhibition turns the museum into a geological terrain where lava, coal, fossils, and ancient air carry stories far older than humanity itself.

Spanning sculpture, installation, film, and photography, Hard Core examines the intersection of planetary forces and human activity. Through materials shaped over millions—and sometimes billions—of years, Charrière invites visitors to confront the vastness of Earth’s history and humanity’s fleeting place within it.

A descent into the planet’s deepest memories

Embedded within Mona’s sandstone-carved architecture, Hard Core follows a path through geological time. Drawing on years of research across volcanoes, glaciers, oceans, and remote territories, Charrière traces the entanglement of natural forces and human intervention.

Science, mythology, environmental history, and material culture converge throughout the exhibition, revealing how the resources that sustain contemporary life remain rooted in an ancient planetary past.

Ancient air and geological time in ‘Breathe’

One of the exhibition’s most extraordinary works is Breathe (2026), a permanent installation created for Mona in collaboration with scientists. The project releases oxygen molecules trapped within banded iron formations since the Great Oxidation Event approximately 2.4 billion years ago.

Inside a circular chamber, visitors encounter air sealed within rock for unimaginable spans of time. The work collapses geological distance into direct experience, making deep history tangible and immediate.

Glacial journeys in ‘Not All Who Wander Are Lost’

Another major installation, Not All Who Wander Are Lost (2026), centres on glacial erratics—boulders carried across continents by ancient ice sheets. These stones rest atop fractured drill cores repaired with brass, aluminium, and stainless steel.

The work places slow geological movement alongside industrial extraction, drawing attention to humanity’s growing impact on the Earth while questioning ideas of mastery over nature.

Language of volcanoes

Volcanic matter recurs throughout the exhibition. In Thickens, Pools, Flows, Rushes, Slows (2020), Charrière works with obsidian, the dark volcanic glass born from rapidly cooled lava. The reflective sculptures evoke both geological violence and ancient ritual practices in which obsidian served as a tool, mirror, and sacred object.

Nearby, lava formations and sound works create an atmospheric environment inspired by active volcanoes, evoking the restless forces that continue to shape the planet beneath the surface.

Curated by Jarrod Rawlins and Olivier Varenne, Hard Core offers the most comprehensive survey of Charrière’s practice so far. Rocks, minerals, glaciers, and atmosphere emerge not as passive scenery but as agents within human history.

Step into Julian Charrière’s world as he explores humanity’s relationship with nature, the legacy of environmental disruption and the power of perception in our conversation.