As floodwater rose through her Lismore home in 2022, artist Antoinette O’Brien watched her unfired ceramic pieces turn back into mud.
The water reached ceiling height, destroying her house and forcing a dramatic escape.
Now her experience is part of an exhibition that recreates flood survivors’ lost homes, inviting visitors into the rooms and memories left behind.
‘The World Came Flooding In’, by filmmakers Isobel Knowles and Van Sowerwine, opens at Ballina’s Northern Rivers Community Gallery on October 15.
Combining miniature sets, photography, sound and virtual reality, the work follows three people whose lives were upended by flooding: O’Brien, Brisbane writer Tom Doig and Melbourne artist Marina Perkovich.
Their rooms were rebuilt in miniature using cardboard and other simple materials, then translated into virtual reality through photographic scanning.
‘The merciless force of raging water changes your life in an instant. What do we find within us afterwards?’ Knowles and Sowerwine wrote in their directors’ notes.
The project began with creative workshops in Lismore, where flood-affected residents used paper craft and photography to remember possessions they had lost.
O’Brien’s own exhibition, ‘It Becomes Light’, will run alongside the installation, bringing together ceramics, photography and salvaged materials to explore memory, displacement and transformation.
The exhibitions launch on October 15 from 5.30pm to 7.30pm at the gallery, 44 Cherry Street, Ballina.
Free, booked virtual-reality sessions begin October 22 and continue on Thursdays and Fridays until December 4. Each session accommodates two participants and lasts 45 minutes.
The experience is recommended for people aged 15 and above, with parental guidance advised. Visitors should be aware that it includes images, sounds and content associated with flooding.
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