Dates: Tuesday, 1 September – Sunday, 4 October 2026
Times: 9:00am – 4:00pm, daily
Entry: FREE
Venue: CCC Capsule Art Space 

About the exhibition:
Say hello to Brutus! He is a white-stemmed acacia caterpillar (Chelepteryx chalepteryx), constructed from salvaged plastics and textiles. He has spent most of his life feeding on and traversing the acacia tree.  

Brutus exits the terrarium. He’s almost ready. 

I’ve always been fascinated by how different creatures experience the world around them, particularly from an insect’s perspective. As you walk across a patch of grass, each step carries you over communities of hundreds of tiny creatures. While we may perceive a tree as part of a landscape, for Brutus and other insects, it is an entire world. 

A blade of grass becomes a great, green runway. Sand transforms to an infinite collection of large quartz crystals. Here, Brutus travels along the acacia stem – his edible bridge. 

This installation celebrates the acacia tree as a vital life source for both animals and people. It is a core species across many Indigenous cultures, including the Bunurong and Wurundjeri peoples of the Cardinia Shire region. The acacia has historically provided food, medicine, tools and shelter. Through the visual metaphor of the caterpillar, I aim to highlight this relationship. For Brutus, this tree is his world.  

Artist’s biography:
Sona Kocharyan is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores themes of bodily manipulation, scale, and transformation through surreal, creature-based narratives. Working across video, sculpture, textiles, painting, and recycled materials, her work examines the fragility and resilience of living forms, often blending natural textures with synthetic matter. Raised in a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) household, Sona draws from her family’s background and connection to language, displacement, and adaptation. This perspective informs her interest in environmental storytelling and hybridised, creature-like forms. Inspired by the physical structures of animals and natural systems, her artworks feature animal-like figures, abstracted anatomical parts, and vibrant, unnatural hues. These juxtapositions highlight both the strangeness and interconnectedness of ecological life in an increasingly polluted world. Her process is spontaneous and collaborative, embracing play and tactility to create immersive artworks and installations. 

Check out the artist’s socials here.

Image credit: Sona Kocharyan, Brutus (installation view), (detail)