Social Networks is an immersive 8-channel moving-image and sound work that examines language's adaptability, diversity, and means in guiding our approach to social and physical environments. Through language, we engage with the world around us, igniting and supporting connections to family, culture and site. In spoken word, sign and song, stories and tales, each participant reflects on their individual experiences of how language functions and continues to unfold within their context.
To Live a World through the Passage of Language, accompanying text by Cristea Nian Zhoa.
Alexander Jordania was born in Georgia and moved to Melbourne in 1995. Learning English as a child, he struggled to maintain his Georgian and later reconnected with it through family visits. He now speaks Georgian at home and English in daily life.
Anni Hagberg is a ceramic-based visual artist, living and working in Melbourne. Her grandmother, like her other grandparents, spoke only Finnish and received just a few years of formal education. With only a handful of diary entries left behind, it was their shared spoken language that formed Anni's primary connection to her familial and cultural heritage. Through this language, she gained a sense of history and belonging, linking her to generations of Finnish people who came before her. Anni’s nods to the Finnish language remained largely oral until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.
Isabel Trufas was born in Timisoara, Romania, and is a Melbourne-based visual artist working with airbrush painting and soft fabric sculpture. Influenced by fashion and pop culture, she is interested in all the things cute and how others may not find those things cute or sweet at all, especially through language, comparing Romanian’s playful diminutives with English.
Luke King is a multidisciplinary artist, video producer and teacher. He has an interest in collaboration, especially with kids, and has performed or co-created works with choreographers, dancers, performers, and other visual artists, in public and private museums and galleries. Luke is a co-founder of Magic Hands with Geoff Riding, and they have been teaching Deaf-led beginner and intermediate Auslan classes since 2015.
Pranav Walimbe was born in Pune, India, and moved to Melbourne in 2018. A speaker of Marathi, English and Hindi. He works in hospitality and loves exploring cultures through food. He also loves his dogs, Poppy and Sesame.
Jing Liang is a Chinese Australian emerging artist living and working in Melbourne. Liang is a current PHD candidate at RMIT University and explores the relationship between language, gender and embodied memory. By repetitively writing the Chinese character for “female” (⼥) across a large sheet of paper, the meaning of the word dissolves, shifting the viewer’s focus to its form, rhythm, and visual structure. The character ⼥ originates from the image of a kneeling woman—an embodied posture tied to historical expectations of submission and gendered roles. Jing references this origin by adopting a similar posture as she writes, allowing her body to engage with the inherited gesture. This durational process draws attention to physical endurance, repetition, and the act of writing as labour.
Mariana Carolina is Argentinian-born and proudly bilingual Indigenous; she’s built a life rooted in creativity, connection, and exploration. After years in hospitality, where she honed her love for food, service, and storytelling, she shifted focus to photography—creating work that helps her heal from her expat journey and celebrate people. In 2012, she arrived in Australia, carrying the vibrant culture of Argentina and an open heart for new beginnings. Now based in Melbourne, she is embracing fresh experiences, driven by a passion for food, art and music.
Lina Buck is a visual artist living and working in Melbourne. Her relationship to German stems from the contexts of its development: family and home. She is interested in the way the German language uses and develops compound words. They are created at the exact moment a specific need arises, providing insight into how the German language has developed over time.
Social Networks is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the City of Melbourne Arts Grants.