Bathurst Region Tourism

Opening // ESSSENSSSE
2025-07-04 18:00 - 20:00 (Australia/Sydney) | Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, 70 -78 Keppel Street, Bathurst, New South Wales, 2795, Australia
OPENING NIGHT // ESSSENSSSE
Friday 4 July, 6-8PM
Auslan interpreted opening speeches (VRI)
ESSSENSSSE Performance
Catering by BRAGS
Beverages by sponsors Grass Parrot Vineyard, Renzaglia Wines, Cosmo Brewing
FREE, all welcome, RSVP essential
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents ESSSENSSSE, a joyful work about healing and new beginnings by acclaimed contemporary artist HOSSEI (NSW), guest curated by Tesha Malott.
ESSSENSSSE is an aquatic ecosystem that explores the tenacity of the human spirit, stripping away corporeal human qualities and revealing what’s underneath. ESSSENSSSE follows HOSSEI’s exploration of creating costumes that ‘heal’. Featuring a cast of 16 other-worldly sea creatures, ESSSENSSSE transitions from a series of dynamic and joyful performances into a sensory, large-scale installation, in which visitors are surrounded by a playful, 100% tactile landscape.
ESSSENSSSE began when HOSSEI became fascinated by the sand dollar sea creatures— their shape, features, and how in mediaeval times it was truly believed that sand dollars were mermaid currency. When looking at the sand dollar, HOSSEI realised that if you were to remove the physical characteristics of a human body, you would be left with a mouth and an anus, just like the sand dollar. It is this idea that compelled HOSSEI to make the sand dollar an emblem of the show. An entry point and an exit, not just with food, but in the sense of discerning which energies come through and nourish the insides, and which are let out. ESSSENSSSE is about letting go and being one with the spirit and embracing its purity and vulnerability.
A Verge Gallery exhibition, touring in partnership with Museums & Galleries of NSW, supported by the University of Sydney and proudly funded by the NSW Government. Verge Gallery is supported by the University of Sydney Union.
Image: HOSSEI, ESSSENSSSE, 2023. Performer Lauren Booker. Dimensions variable. Photography by Jacquie Manning.

OPENING // Mystery of Missing Westerlies
2025-07-04 18:00 - 20:00
OPENING // Mystery of Missing Westerlies
A BRAG Foyer Space Exhibition by Ecological Gyre Theory
Auslan interpreted opening speeches (VRI)
Catering by BRAGS
Beverages by sponsors Grass Parrot Vineyard, Renzaglia Wines, and Cosmo Brewing
FREE, all welcome, RSVP essential
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents Mystery of Missing Westerlies by Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse (Ecological Gyre Theory).
Mystery of Missing Westerlies is a body of work emerging in response to a news article from April 7, 1950 which details “extraordinary weather”; a local manifestation of global atmospheric change, being the disappearance of westerly winds across New South Wales in response to planetary changes sweeping the northern hemisphere. Working across installation, video and intervention, Mystery of Missing Westerlies considers pasts, presents and futures in an interconnected planetary atmospheric frame.
The disappearance of the westerly winds is itself both a historical anomaly and a planetary omen. We treat this climatic rupture as an atmospheric case file, a study in atmospheric disappearance, inviting consideration of the interplay between absence, evidence, and the forces shaping our world. Here, wind becomes both subject and metaphor—an invisible actor whose movements carry sediments, shape deserts, and drive oceanic currents, but also a narrative force whose disappearance tells of shifting global patterns. Embedded within this body of work are material traces of evidence and investigation, material clues in a wider investigation of climate, memory, and time.

Artist & Curator Talk // ESSSENSSSE
2025-07-05 11:00 - 12:00
Artist & Curator Talk // ESSSENSSSE
Saturday 5 July, 11am
Join ESSSENSSSE artist HOSSEI and guest curator Tesha Malott in conversation at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.
FREE, all welcome, RSVP essential
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents ESSSENSSSE, a joyful work about healing and new beginnings by acclaimed contemporary artist HOSSEI (NSW), guest curated by Tesha Malott.
ESSSENSSSE is an aquatic ecosystem that explores the tenacity of the human spirit, stripping away corporeal human qualities and revealing what’s underneath. ESSSENSSSE follows HOSSEI’s exploration of creating costumes that ‘heal’. Featuring a cast of 16 other-worldly sea creatures, ESSSENSSSE transitions from a series of dynamic and joyful performances into a sensory, large-scale installation, in which visitors are surrounded by a playful, 100% tactile landscape.
ESSSENSSSE began when HOSSEI became fascinated by the sand dollar sea creatures— their shape, features, and how in mediaeval times it was truly believed that sand dollars were mermaid currency. When looking at the sand dollar, HOSSEI realised that if you were to remove the physical characteristics of a human body, you would be left with a mouth and an anus, just like the sand dollar. It is this idea that compelled HOSSEI to make the sand dollar an emblem of the show. An entry point and an exit, not just with food, but in the sense of discerning which energies come through and nourish the insides, and which are let out. ESSSENSSSE is about letting go and being one with the spirit and embracing its purity and vulnerability.
A Verge Gallery exhibition, touring in partnership with Museums & Galleries of NSW, supported by the University of Sydney and proudly funded by the NSW Government. Verge Gallery is supported by the University of Sydney Union.
Image: HOSSEI, ESSSENSSSE, 2023. Performer Lauren Booker. Dimensions variable. Photography by Jacquie Manning.

Sunday Sketch & Make Sessions // ESSSENSSSE
2025-07-06 10:00 - 14:00
Sunday Sketch Sessions // ESSSENSSSE
Head to BRAG each Sunday during ESSSENSSSE for a self-guided Sunday Sketch & Make Session!

Sundays, 10am-2pm
FREE, all welcome, materials supplied

About the Exhibition:
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) presents ESSSENSSSE, a joyful work about healing and new beginnings by acclaimed contemporary artist HOSSEI (NSW), guest curated by Tesha Malott.
ESSSENSSSE is an aquatic ecosystem that explores the tenacity of the human spirit, stripping away corporeal human qualities and revealing what’s underneath. ESSSENSSSE follows HOSSEI’s exploration of creating costumes that ‘heal’. Featuring a cast of 16 other-worldly sea creatures, ESSSENSSSE transitions from a series of dynamic and joyful performances into a sensory, large-scale installation, in which visitors are surrounded by a playful, 100% tactile landscape.
A Verge Gallery exhibition, touring in partnership with Museums & Galleries of NSW, supported by the University of Sydney and proudly funded by the NSW Government. Verge Gallery is supported by the University of Sydney Union.

Image: HOSSEI, ESSSENSSSE, 2023. Performer Lauren Booker. Dimensions variable. Photography by Jacquie Manning.
