Sydney Exhibition
Mercedes Vukovich

Opens Wednesday 11 March, 6 – 8pm
Runs 12 – 22 March 2026

Artist Statement

Mercedes Vukovich’s practice is informed by Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection outlined in her essay The Powers of Horror. In the chapter The Improper/Unclean, Kristeva details that the corpse seen without God or science is of the utmost of abjection, it is death infecting life.

Vukovich’s exhibition Shooting Party explores the objectification of the body after death within the context of hunting culture, informed by Isabel Colegate’s 1980 novel of the same title. A shooting party is an organised event where aristocrats will remain on an estate over the course of a few days to hunt game accompanied by formal meals and attire. There is a ritualistic nature to it and a ‘’civilised’’ social protocol one must follow.

This exhibition centres on the sacrificial note of a ‘’shooting party’’ although nature always includes the note of death and bloodshed, there is a cognitive dissonance in the manufactured experience of  competing via slaughter for pleasure.  Moreover issues such as masculinity, feminism and class cannot be ignored, the exploitation of vulnerable beings by the upper class calls for a  sympathetic alliance with the animals, exploited by all men.