HEAP is a monumental new artwork transforming the Carriageworks foyer during the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (20–30 August 2026) into a vast landscape of earth, excavation and discovery.

Part installation, part archaeological dig, HEAP invites audiences to step barefoot into the dirt, take up a trowel and begin searching. Buried beneath the surface are dangerous ideas concealed as artworks: eight new commissions from leading Australian artists waiting to be unearthed.

As each work emerges from the ground, excavation becomes a shared act of discovery. Visitors are invited to examine, question and confront the ideas shaping our world.

Dig into themes of digital labour, sovereignty and patriotism, environmental collapse, the endless imagery of war, deep-time Indigenous knowledge systems, loneliness and healing. HEAP transforms excavation into a powerful metaphor for intellectual and emotional revelation, bringing buried ideas into the light and asking what happens when we choose to engage with them.

Collaborating artists:
– Brook Garru Andrew (Wiradjuri)
– Aretha Brown (Gumbaynggirr)
– Keg de Souza (NSW)
– Tarryn Gill (WA)
– HOSSEI (NSW)
– Sophie Penkethman-Young (NSW)
– Tim Silver (NSW)
– EJ Son (NSW)

Sydney: 20 – 30 August 2026