The Instrumental 2022

Summary

This intricate cardboard contraption by Daniel Agdag is a part of the Metro Tunnel Creative Project Donation received by the Art and Heritage Collection in 2023. The work was featured as a part of the exhibition 'Making the Metro Tunnel: Reflections by Contemporary Australian Artists' which took place at Domain House from 1 April - 7 May 2023.

Commissioned by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program, the exhibition sought to "explore and celebrate the construction milestones of the Metro Tunnel Project, which has been under construction for several years. The artists in this exhibition have taken inspiration from archaeological digs, heavy machinery, the aesthetics of worksites and worker's equipment to produce their own portrayals of the project." - quote from 'Making the Metro Tunnel' exhibition catalogue, 2023

"Inspired by the tunnel boring machine deployed to create the Metro Tunnel, ‘The Instrumental’ is a manifestation of a fictional contraption, with each component deliberately elevated to form an imagined narrative. Severed from its umbilical to the infrastructure above, the contraption has thus become an autonomous assembly of complex systems and a determination of combined elements that form strength through connections and the disbursement of load. ‘The Instrumental’ serves to act as an artefact of the embedded labour, imagination and innovation that becomes gradually forgotten over time after its primary outcome has been achieved." - Daniel Agdag, quote from 'Making the Metro Tunnel' exhibition catalogue, 2023