We live in times of great change, ambiguity and uncertainty, as if on the edge of a precipice.

Jonathan Jones and Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM ask us to pay attention, breathe deeply and sense the changing winds, to look for fallen feathers below and observe the birds above. untitled (giran) 2018 shares Wiradjuri knowledge and is named for the winds, as well as the change a new wind brings. This vast murmuration incorporates traditional tools carrying knowledge passed through generations. Jones speaks of each idea, each tool, as being limitless in its potential application.

Chalk, a humble tool for learning, is one of Tacita Dean’s preferred materials. She used it to create Chalk Fall 2018 as Brexit debates tore at the fabric of her country of birth and a dear friend entered a sudden mortal decline. Here we see a section of cliff crashing into the sea, the land’s edge giving way to air. Ali Kazim paints a surging wall of dust as it sweeps across the ruins of ancient Indus Valley civilisations, now reduced to shards and small fragments.

Ideas can outlast towers of stone but require care and attention to do so. Patrick Pound uses air, the most intangible of subjects, to ask how we build, hold and share knowledge. Entering Anthony McCall’s installation Crossing 2016, we are encompassed by a slowing shifting architecture of light. Air becomes solid, for a moment, and then evaporates.

Feature image: An installation view of Tacita Dean’s Chalk Fall 2018, installed at GOMA for ‘Air’, November 2022 / © Tacita Dean / Photograph: J Ruckli, QAGOMA