Renowned Artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas’ Safe Zone Opens at Artspace this November
Artspace is delighted to announce the opening of its latest exhibition, Christopher Kulendran Thomas’ Safe Zone from Friday 14 November 2025 to Sunday 15 February 2026.
Venue: Artspace
Address: 43–51 Cowper Wharf Roadway Woolloomooloo NSW 2011 Sydney Australia
Date: Friday 14 November 2025 to Sunday 15 February 2026.
Time: 11am - 5pm
Ticket: Free
Web: https://www.artspace.org.au/exhibitions/christopher-kulendran-thomas-safe-zone
EMail: artspace@artspace.org.au
Call: +61 2 9356 0555
Address: 43–51 Cowper Wharf Roadway Woolloomooloo NSW 2011 Sydney Australia
Date: Friday 14 November 2025 to Sunday 15 February 2026.
Time: 11am - 5pm
Ticket: Free
Web: https://www.artspace.org.au/exhibitions/christopher-kulendran-thomas-safe-zone
EMail: artspace@artspace.org.au
Call: +61 2 9356 0555
An artist of Eelam Tamil descent, Christopher Kulendran Thomas uses artificial intelligence technologies to examine the foundational fictions of Western individualism and the complex legacies of imperialism.
His exhibition Safe Zone combines painting and television—two historical mediums of soft power—across two major bodies of work. The exhibition brings together two ground zeros—one that was witnessed by billions in real time and another that occurred in its aftermath but went unwitnessed by the outside world.
At the centre of the exhibition is Peace Core (sphere), 2024, a video work of infinite duration produced in collaboration with Annika Kuhlman, co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels, FACT, Liverpool and Artspace, Sydney. Peace Core (sphere) features American television footage first broadcast in the moments before the world-changing events of September 11, 2001.
The rotating sphere of screens uses a purpose-built AI algorithm to endlessly re-edit and remix that fateful morning’s television footage and its accompanying sound.
The other work in this exhibition will be a series of expressionistic paintings that imagine scenes from an undocumented massacre on the beaches of Mullivaikkal, in what is now Sri Lanka, that was perpetrated in the wake of the ‘War on Terror’ following 9/11.
The accompanying 12 paintings are composed using a neural network trained on the work of generations of some of Sri Lanka’s most well-known artists who were influenced by the European modernisms first brought to the island by British settlers.
Despite their seemingly different forms and subjects, the video installation and paintings are deeply interwoven—linked through ongoing political ripples and questions of image circulation and suppression, whose history is told, and which narratives are remembered.
Artspace’s Director, Victor Wang said:
“With Safe Zone, Christopher Kulendran Thomas asks us to look again at how histories are mediated, whether through screens or painting, and at the possibilities of artificial intelligence to open up a collective consciousness larger than any one author. For those of us shaped by diasporas and unfinished histories, the work—together with the upcoming series of shows at Artspace—feels like both a reckoning and a reminder that art is not only about beauty, but about who gets to narrate the world. Artspace is proud to present this timely and urgent exhibition in Sydney.”
Artspace’s Curator, Katie Dyer said:
“Safe Zone examines the role of media and the impacts of mediatization as forms of soft power in relation to global events and contemporary realities. Christopher’s incisive and layered work incorporates new and old image-making technologies, including the traditional medium of painting, to question how visual culture is circulated and what constitutes notions such a freedom, democracy, colonisation and nationhood.”
Safe Zone will be accompanied by a series of public programs including talks, tours, reading groups and a closing party, featuring participants and collaborators such as historian Niro Kandasamy, an expert in Australia’s international relations with Sri Lanka and Tamil asylum seekers; renowned author Shankari Chandran; award-winning filmmaker and legal scholar Visakesa Chandrasekaram; lawyer, broadcaster and organiser Thinesh Thillainadarajah; Donna Brett, a leading art historian who examines photography as a means of testimony, surveillance, and spectacle; producer and music artist Munasib Hamid; and WEILS Chief Curator Helena Kritis, who developed the exhibition's initial presentation in Brussels.
For more information, please visit: artspace.org.au.
Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels, FACT, Liverpool, and Artspace, Sydney
Supported by The Medich Foundation
Artspace acknowledges the Goethe-Institute and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
His exhibition Safe Zone combines painting and television—two historical mediums of soft power—across two major bodies of work. The exhibition brings together two ground zeros—one that was witnessed by billions in real time and another that occurred in its aftermath but went unwitnessed by the outside world.
At the centre of the exhibition is Peace Core (sphere), 2024, a video work of infinite duration produced in collaboration with Annika Kuhlman, co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels, FACT, Liverpool and Artspace, Sydney. Peace Core (sphere) features American television footage first broadcast in the moments before the world-changing events of September 11, 2001.
The rotating sphere of screens uses a purpose-built AI algorithm to endlessly re-edit and remix that fateful morning’s television footage and its accompanying sound.
The other work in this exhibition will be a series of expressionistic paintings that imagine scenes from an undocumented massacre on the beaches of Mullivaikkal, in what is now Sri Lanka, that was perpetrated in the wake of the ‘War on Terror’ following 9/11.
The accompanying 12 paintings are composed using a neural network trained on the work of generations of some of Sri Lanka’s most well-known artists who were influenced by the European modernisms first brought to the island by British settlers.
Despite their seemingly different forms and subjects, the video installation and paintings are deeply interwoven—linked through ongoing political ripples and questions of image circulation and suppression, whose history is told, and which narratives are remembered.
Artspace’s Director, Victor Wang said:
“With Safe Zone, Christopher Kulendran Thomas asks us to look again at how histories are mediated, whether through screens or painting, and at the possibilities of artificial intelligence to open up a collective consciousness larger than any one author. For those of us shaped by diasporas and unfinished histories, the work—together with the upcoming series of shows at Artspace—feels like both a reckoning and a reminder that art is not only about beauty, but about who gets to narrate the world. Artspace is proud to present this timely and urgent exhibition in Sydney.”
Artspace’s Curator, Katie Dyer said:
“Safe Zone examines the role of media and the impacts of mediatization as forms of soft power in relation to global events and contemporary realities. Christopher’s incisive and layered work incorporates new and old image-making technologies, including the traditional medium of painting, to question how visual culture is circulated and what constitutes notions such a freedom, democracy, colonisation and nationhood.”
Safe Zone will be accompanied by a series of public programs including talks, tours, reading groups and a closing party, featuring participants and collaborators such as historian Niro Kandasamy, an expert in Australia’s international relations with Sri Lanka and Tamil asylum seekers; renowned author Shankari Chandran; award-winning filmmaker and legal scholar Visakesa Chandrasekaram; lawyer, broadcaster and organiser Thinesh Thillainadarajah; Donna Brett, a leading art historian who examines photography as a means of testimony, surveillance, and spectacle; producer and music artist Munasib Hamid; and WEILS Chief Curator Helena Kritis, who developed the exhibition's initial presentation in Brussels.
For more information, please visit: artspace.org.au.
Co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels, FACT, Liverpool, and Artspace, Sydney
Supported by The Medich Foundation
Artspace acknowledges the Goethe-Institute and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia