Sophia Olivieri

This work is part of Curatorial+Co.'s 2026 group exhibition, 'The Beast In Me'.

Of all the internal mechanisms that drive us, perhaps the most primordial is the beast. We expel the animal, the bodily, the base in favour of the intellect, yet it is the beast that holds what is most irreducibly human—impulses and desires that precede thought: love, rage, care, protection, connection. The very thing we suppress is also the thing that touches what is most vital.

Sophia Olivieri’s 'Access Point' repositions the access covers and service markers embedded throughout Sydney’s streets and footpaths, discreetly buried in lawns or protruding from concrete slabs. Each service marker varies in pattern, colour and material, reflecting essential systems relating to water, gas, electricity, and communication. While these surfaces function as physical points into these underground systems, they also symbolise the invisible networks beneath us that sustain daily life, providing communities with cleanliness, warmth and connection.

Through an imperfect cast of an electrical service marker, Olivieri mimics the topography of the footpath. The mould is cast in prosthetic silicone 'skin', a continuation of Olivieri’s ongoing material and conceptual exploration of flesh and skin throughout her practice. Translucent and fragile, skin often serves as both surface and threshold, becoming the closest visible point to another person’s inner workings. By altering the materiality of the object, the industrial marker is transformed into an anthropomorphic form, drawing intimate parallels between person and infrastructure.