Professor Dvorak published a long essay entitled “Sublimating the Sublime” in the book that accompanied the the 24th Biennale of Sydney’s “Ten Thousand Suns” international exhibition. His paper critically examines the artistic romantic embrace of the sublime amidst the Anthropocene’s dual crises of climate change and nuclear legacy, drawing on his 2023 Bikini and Rongelap Atolls research. This Biennale, running from March 9 to June 10, 2024, featured over 400 works by 96 artists, including Indigenous and queer voices, under a theme that highlighted the power of marginalized communities’ resistance through celebratory and carnival practices. “Ten Thousand Suns” symbolizes the vibrant defiance against oppression, with Dvorak’s essay focusing on the importance of finding hope in histories of destruction.
