JEN VALENDER X ALPHA60
You're Invited: Opening Night of Stormborne
Friday 30 May, 6–8pm
Alpha60 Chapter House, Level 2, 195 Flinders Ln, Melbourne
Celebrate the launch of Stormborne, a powerful new film and sound installation by artist Jen Valender, featuring sculptural drums played by wind and rain.
Live performances:
Alastair Kerr – jazz percussion at 6pm
Wadaiko Rindo Taiko Group at 6:30pm
Launching alongside the exhibition is the Stormborne Artist Series — limited-edition weatherproof pieces by Alpha60 and Jen Valender, inspired by the film’s storm-forged forms.
Exhibition runs: 30 May – 30 June 2025
About Stormborne:
Alpha60 is proud to present Stormborne, a powerful new installation by contemporary artist Jen Valender, running from 30 May to 30 June 2025 at Chapter House, an atmospheric and historic venue adjacent to St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne’s city centre.
Filmed during Valender’s 2024 winter residency at Police Point on the Mornington Peninsula, Stormborne immerses audiences in the rising drama of Australia’s changing coastal climate. At the heart of the work are sculptural drums, crafted from recycled local materials and an antique weather map, engineered to be played not by hand, but by the forces of rain and wind.
As wild weather moves through, the sculptures are activated by the elements, transforming natural forces into sound. The resulting film installation, projected onto the walls of Chapter House, draws audiences into a sonic landscape that is as haunting as it is urgent, a meditation on climate, fragility, and the rhythm of ecological change.
About the Artist:
Jen Valender is an Australasian artist, born in Aotearoa New Zealand and based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Her multidisciplinary practice spans film, performance, sculpture, and sound, creating performative encounters with the landscape that question the boundaries between art, ecology, and the more-than-human world. Grounded in the cinematic and driven by site-specific inquiry, her work explores material conditions, ethical dilemmas, and poetic tensions, using visual art as a language capable of holding complexity, contradiction, and layered histories. Valender’s practice invites audiences to experience art not as a static form, but as a responsive method for navigating human and nonhuman intersections.
About the Collaboration:
In parallel with the exhibition, Alpha60 will release a limited-edition Stormborne Artist Series, developed in close collaboration with Valender. The collection includes a weatherproof raincoat and bag, inspired by the coastal storms and sculptural elements seen in the film. The tassel elements which are central to Jen Valender’s film and drum sculptures have been reimagined in the garments as tactile design features, translating atmospheric motion into wearable form.
The limited-edition Stormborne Artist Series will launch 30th May 2025 6pm AEST.
