Also, I think we all know it, or if we choose to ignore it, that decision is hard to shift. Just thinking about how apocalyptic the situation is right now is actually quite petrifying – in the sense that it turns us to stone, and it actually makes it harder to act because we feel so powerless. So a lot of what I’m thinking about now is how do I make work that is hopeful and invigorating without being naively optimistic or ignoring our reality. How can I make work that acknowledges the reality of the anthropocene but also inspires people to imagine a positive future that we might be able to work towards. I have children, and I have to believe that we can create a future despite the many horrible old men who seem bent on destroying it. We cannot go back to a pre-industrial age, so how can we create a future along with other animals and the nature that we have that is good for us and for the rest of the planet. Nature has always changed and evolved, but now we have a more of a part in that change, so how can art empower people to push that change in the right direction. It’s a huge question, but one I feel I have to try to address. I guess it’s my dream at the moment.

Personally I often think about dreams looking at your sculptures.

That makes a lot of sense. Even though I spend a lot of time thinking about my work and the ideas and stories that inform it, a lot of it comes from a more unconscious place. I don’t often use my own specific dreams, but a lot of the forms and even the ideas come from a process of drawing which is very un controlled. I find myself drawn to certain shapes and relationships, and these have become a sort of vocabulary in the studio. There is also the verisimilitude in the work. The use of realistic sculptural techniques combined with the imagery that does not actually belong in the world has a very dreamlike effect. This is like the way a dream seems very real when you are in it, but is actually completely fantastical when you think back on it.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working towards a major site-specific exhibition in the Flinders Street Railway station in Melbourne as part of the new rising Festival. It revolves around taking over these spaces that have been closed up since the 1980s and occupying them with a series of new works and installations. The spaces themselves are amazing; there is a ballroom and old gym that date back to the 1920s. The show addresses the sort of issues that have long concerned me, but skewed a bit by the experience of the pandemic and lockdown, with a focus on both resilience and connection, and how we might image a way out of our current situation. I’m very interested in what I call ‘speculative optimism’, which is about inventing narratives of hope that help us imagine what the world should look like – rather than what it does look like – so we can begin to move towards a positive place.