Curated by Mary George One of the Forgotten is a mixed media group exhibition. The show reflects on the consequences of human nature on man and his environment. In an attempt to investigate the subject, the exhibition features the work of nine young artists Ronin Cho, Meryl Donoghue, David George, Melissa Henderson, Rae Hicks, Kai Kim, Hannah Luxton, Sophie Percival and Spencer Rowell. Painting, video, photography and sculptures are put together to explore the theme through different mediums. Each artists analyses human nature, if not the action, the consequence and impact it has on himself, his relationships and his environment.

A grand high-ceilinged room, empty except for one vitrine, a light breeze wafting through, courtesy of Ryan Gander (I Need Some Meaning I Can Memorise (The Invisible Pull), 2012). Inside, a letter to Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13) scrawled across five pages of A4 in a scratchy script, pleasing to the eye but difficult to read. The opening of the letter reads: “Dear Carolyn, I do write to you in remorse, because I feel you may think I betrayed your trust and confidence in me…” The letter was written by Kai Althoff, an artist billed to participate in the event. Later in the message she pleads to be pulled from the show, citing “[her] great doubt of how to continue with [herself].” The letter’s inclusion then, an act of curation on the part of Christov-Bakargiev, seems to find a middle-ground, compliant in requiring no more of Althoff, but nonetheless a definite contribution by the artist. The text of the letter is an emotional outburst, a voicing of an artist too lost in the protocol of exhibiting to have anything real to show.  The room seems suddenly mournful, but perhaps this atmosphere is provided by another work.

Grand Union is an artist run project space in the metallic confides of Digbeth, Birmingham. The current exhibition, The Possibility of an Island, focuses on the question of what an ‘island’ is, and how said ‘island’ interacts with its environment through video, sculpture and drawing. It conjures up, even before entering the space, a unique physical tension. As the title appears to be negotiating the possibility of an island existing, one is immediately deemed to analyse what an island is. An island is something that is removed from a larger body of land, thus it tends to mould and warp the influence it has gained from other landmasses to its own isolated fixation. In doing so is it saying that this is what the work is going to be – a collection of art works crushed together in grotesque and distorted manner thick with conflict and invasiveness?

The Australian Institute of Architects will open their Formations: New Practices in Australian Architecture this August at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennial.

As new economic, social and cultural challenges present themselves, the exhibition at the Australian Pavilion will act as a catalyst for discussion and debate around the changing role of architects and the ways in which they influence the world around them.