When the worst bushfires in Australia’s history spread through New South Wales last year, more than a billion animals were reportedly killed, with koalas hit particularly hard. Two recent studies put the death toll somewhere between 6382 and 10,000 – either way, a significant percentage of the marsupials’ overall population – while others were treated for severe burns and dehydration. Now some of the patients are being released back into the wild, and in a positive twist, they’re doing it sooner than expected.
At Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai, Indian contemporary artist Manish Nai invites viewers to reconsider the materials that surround them. In In Search of Material within Material, a solo exhibition bringing together works created between 2021 and 2026, discarded objects, industrial surfaces and familiar everyday materials become the starting point for an exploration of form, memory and transformation.