Floor Talk: Darcey Bella Arnold

Join Melbourne artist Darcey Bella Arnold and curator Annika Aitken for a floor talk on our current exhibition Poetry goes no further than language. Moving through the exhibition, this conversation will explore Arnold’s new responsive body of work and her enduring interest in how language, image, and systems of meaning can be taken apart and reassembled.

Please note this talk will be in English.

About the experts

Darcey Bella Arnold

Darcey works between painting, sculpture and drawing in a research-based practice that anatomises language to annotate its necessity, fallibility and creative potential. Arnold deploys strategies of metaphor, double entendre, repetition and humour to examine personal archives, obfuscate conventional symbolism and re-examine cultural touchstones. Arnold’s work has been shown in institutions and museums across Australia including the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; UNSW Galleries, Sydney; Geelong Gallery, Geelong; La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Western Australia. Recently, Arnold’s work was included in the inaugural Melbourne Sculpture Biennale (2024) and commissioned in the Lorne Sculpture Biennale (2025).

Annika Aitken 

Annika is a writer, editor and curator based in Naarm (Melbourne). She is currently Curator, Art Museums at the University of Melbourne where she works on exhibitions and publishing projects across Buxton Contemporary and the Potter Museum of Art. She has managed a range of arts projects across state, local government and the private sector, and collaborative projects with artist-run organisations.

You may also like

Poetry goes no further than language: A historical moment of art becoming art again

A defining moment in mid-1980s China, when a group of artists began to question all existing values and presumptions about art.

Guided tours: Poetry goes no further than language

Join a free guided tour of Poetry Goes No Further and explore the artists, ideas and histories that shaped conceptual art in China during the 1980s

Table Poem

Inviting visitors to create automated poetry from falling notes, exploring chance, language and participation within Chinese conceptual art traditions.