Wiradjuri–Scottish artist April Phillips is the recipient of the inaugural boorda yeyi Immersive Arts Commission, an initiative valued at $75,000 that supports the development of new work at the intersection of art and technology.
UNDERWATERS
Phillips’ commission, Under Waters, will take the form of a slow-moving interactive installation in which projected imagery and sound shift from pre-historic shells to futuristic space. Working with real-time body tracking, game engines and generative sound, Phillips together with collaborators Jordan East and Pat Younis as the collective Friends with Computers develop immersive environments that bring technology into dialogue with science and poetic computation.
In Under Waters (2026), audiences will enter a speculative version of Australia billions of years ago, where saltwater stretches across the Earth’s surface. Within this generative world, silhouettes will dissolve and reform as crustaceous-like beings, gathering coral, sand, rock and stellar matter. As sound and projected animation change in real time with audience interaction, bodies will morph from pre-historic beings into expansive star fields.
Phillips’ 3D animations will draw on scans of Xenophora (ancient shells found around the Australian coastline), moving between history and cosmology. The work will develop gradually rather than through spectacle, encouraging viewers to remain with its slowly shifting environment.
Developed in collaboration with community, the commission extends Phillips’ commitment to expanding access to technology. For this project, she positions her practice as a tool for inclusion, opening pathways into futures of connection and reciprocity.
Under Waters will be exhibited at PICA from 19 February – 29 March 2026, before touring regional Western Australia with boorda yeyi’s touring partner, ART ON THE MOVE.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
April Phillips (b. 1983, Paddington, NSW) is a Wiradjuri–Scottish woman of the Galari/Kalari peoples, living and working on Yuin Country, South Coast, NSW. Her practice is grounded in futurism and media arts, spanning moving image, printmaking, illustration, 3D assets, AR research and photogrammetry. Drawing equally on analogue processes and emergent technologies, Phillips explores relationality, place and poetic computation, often leading collaborative teams to realise ambitious, interdisciplinary projects.
Phillips studied Creative Arts + Design at Charles Sturt University (graduating in 2018), undertook field research in Malta, and completed advanced training in augmented reality at the School for Poetic Computation, New York in 2021.
She has presented significant solo exhibitions including LOOK ▷ SEE, Lendlease Arts, Melbourne International Film Festival Residency, 2024; kajoo yannaga (Come On, Let’s Walk Together), Australian Centre for the Moving Image with Now or Never and Melbourne International Film Festival, 2024; Out of This World, Jacky Winter Gallery (2023), and Being Mushroom, City of Sydney Studios: Brand X (2022). Her major commissions include Body Place, Urban Theatre Projects, 2024; Blooms + Bugs, Canberra University Hospital, 2024; and Jacky Winter Waters, Walkerville North, 2021. Phillips has also exhibited internationally at the World Expo Osaka, Australian Pavillion (2025), and Neurotitan Gallery, Berlin (2019).
Phillips was recently awarded Creative Australia’s prestigious 2025 Emerging and Experimental Arts Fellowship, affirming her position as one of Australia’s most rapidly evolving contemporary media artists. Her leadership in digital arts was also recognised when she was named Rising Star of the Year by Women in Digital in 2023) and received the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Uncle Jack Charles Award in 2024 for her work kajoo yannaga, developed in collaboration with ACMI, Now or Never Festival and RMIT.
Her commitment to cross-disciplinary innovation has been supported through major residencies and fellowships, including the Australian Council for the Arts Digital Fellowship (2022), Megalo Print Studio, Canberra (2022) and Arteles, Finland (2014). Further recognition has come through national prizes, as finalist for the Fremantle Print Prize (2025) and Gosford Art Gallery Moving Image Award (2025).
Images: LOOK ▷ SEE (Look to See), 2024. Courtesy of the artist. April Phillips, kajoo yannaga, 2024, Australian Centre for the Moving Image with Now or Never and Melbourne International Film Festival. Photo: Nick Robertson. Courtesy of the artist. April Phillips, Body Place, 2024, Bankstown Arts Centre with Urban Theatre Projects. Photo: Jacqui Manning. Courtesy of the artist.
