“Motet Fail”
Tina Stefanou
18 Feb → 18 Apr 2026
Gallery

Installation view of Motet Fail featuring a wall to wall seating structure with a divided ledge down the middle containing a bed of sand filled with candles. The whole structure is lined with burgundy carpet. On the right there is a large circular disc on the carpet.
Tina Stefanou, 'Motet Fail', 2026, commissioned by West Space, concrete, carpet, wood, stone, granite, sand, beeswax, fire, installation view, West Space. Photography by Janelle Low.

West Space presents a new commission by Tina Stefanou, continuing her methodology of expanded cinema, vocal orientations and performance in a practice she calls 'voice in the expanded field'.

The site of Motet Fail takes the backgammon board as a starting point, transforming West Space into a site for reflection, encounter and concert. Through a series of material, embodied, vocal gestures, and acoustic gatherings, Motet Fail asks how we meet one another, and what we risk in the process.

Motet Fail emerges from Stefanou’s early memories of learning to sing ‘straight’, over a single flame, steadying her breath and vibrato to produce pure notes and to not blow out the candle. Her vibrato, an engine filled with performative habits, identity, and selfhood, became disciplined through classical and jazz technical idioms.

Stefanou invites vocalists to inhabit Motet Fail with her: performing a series of live vocal actions that test the futile pursuit of perfection to the point of rupture. In between these moments, audiences are invited to engage in Actions for Phono-Chronophobia, a singing lesson that might reorient fear of voice, or fear of time.

As Alexandra Pirici writes on Stefanou's practice,

"Voice can be a stand-in for bodies of all kinds, an extension of them, enabled by the physicality of sound - whether produced by something with a head, lungs, a mouth and vocal cords, or by another material configuration. In its multiplicity, voice is something to tune in to; a tool for attuning. It might ask of us, human animals, to learn how to enjoy the messier environment of polyphony; to find harmony through negotiating tension and space, in the middle ground, with and around each other."

Developed with artistic collaborators Romanie Harper and Aldo Bilotta, accoutrements of backgammon permeate the gallery and into the working space. A 5,000-year-old game with origins in the ancient region currently known as Iran, backgammon emerged as a game of Empire, spreading across West Asia and Europe along routes of trade, cultural exchange and conquest. Historically, the rules of backgammon have been known to shift depending on one’s position in society. In art history, the game has appeared as a symbol of vice, gambling, skill, and chance. Within the hellish scene of The Garden of Earthly Delights,1510, Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch used it to signal moral decay and a descent toward damnation.

Motet Fail acts as a companion to You Can't See Speed, commissioned by ACCA. Where the first exhibition explored cinema at its perceptual and sonic thresholds, Motet Fail emerges as its quieter subconscious.

A black and white cropped image of a painting with a caption in yellow text that says the words Motet Fail in square brackets.
Tina Stefanou, 'Motet Fail', 2026, screenshot by the artist featuring Hieronymus Bosch, 'The Garden of Earthly Delights', 1510.

Tina Stefanou: Motet Fail is a West Space Commission, supported by Creative Australia. Read the essay mentioned above: On voice, in writing.

The artist wishes to thank Aldo Bilotta, Bethany J Fellows, Tom Goodman, Romanie Harper, Emmy Mavroidis, Conor Murray, Patricia Reed, Brigit Ryan, Lisa Salvo, George Stefanou, Kosta Stefanou.

Programs

Opening celebration and vocalities, Sat 18 Feb, 6 → 8pm

Tina Stefanou invites vocalist and long-term collaborator Lisa Salvo to stage a responsive, choral intervention within Motet Fail.

Artist talk, Sat 21 Feb, 2 → 3pm

Tina Stefanou in conversation with Joanna Kitto, West Space Director.

Please note: West Space is closed over the Easter long weekend, Fri 3 April → Mon 6 April.

Installation view of Motet Fail featuring a wall to wall seating structure with a divided ledge down the middle containing a bed of sand filled with candles. The whole structure is lined with burgundy carpet. On the right there is a large circular disc on the carpet.
a large circular concrete disc sits on the burgundy carpet floor. There are a row of burning candles in the background.
a large wall to wall sitting structure made of dark timber and burgundy carpet is divided by a short wall lined with a bed of sand and lit candles
a large wall to wall sitting structure made of dark timber and burgundy carpet is divided by a short wall lined with a bed of sand and lit candles
A wide shot of West space gallery showing a large wall to wall sitting structure made of dark wood and lined with burgundy carpet. There is a dividing section lined with candles in sand.
Long wooden bench structure with sand and lit candles sits in front of three large nine grid windows.
a foreshortened view of a long section of a sand bed with many long candles sticking out of the sand.
Close-up of a wooden bench with the words deer croak engraved onto the side. There are numerous lit candles stuck into the sand sitting within the bench.
a long bed of sand stretches from one end of the image to the other lined with burning candles. There is an orange coloured stone disc that sits on the burgundy carpet in the distance
a close up out of focus image of burning candles shows a seated wooden structure in the distant that has the word 'clapping' carved into it inside of square brackets like a subtitle.
a large circular grey disc sits on a large square of burgundy carpet on top of floor boards.
a close up detail picture of a concrete cast object that resembles a man hole cover. There is a word visible that says "warming".
a detail of a large circular disc cast object that resembles a man hole cover. There is a short text visible that says "breath held".
a large pile of long bees wax candles sit in front of two stacked abstract stone dice on the West space bench. In the background is a large carpeted sitting area lined with lit candles.
The exhibition title Motet Fail, and the names Tina Stefanou, Romanie Harper and Aldo Bilotta painted in black on a white wall. In the foreground sits a large dice sculpture on the corner of a wooden table.
Close-up of a black dice sculpture sitting on a wooden plank floor against a white brick wall.
A black dice sculpture sitting on a wooden floor beneath a fire distinguisher hanging on a white brick wall.
Tina with her head buried in a mound of sand surrounded by lit wax candles at varying heights, and a small audience watching in the background.
Lisa with both hands resting on a wooden bench preparing to blow out a candle stuck into the sand on a wooden bench.
Tina and Lisa both with hands rested on a wooden bench preparing to blow out a candle each, with a group of people watching.
A hanging tv screen disolaying a close up of Tina's mouth blowing out a candle. To the left are two large dice sculptures and a pile of wax candles.
A group of audience members seated along a wooden bench in front of two nine grid windows.
Tina Stefanou and two audience members seated and having a conversation on a wooden bench.

Tina Stefanou is a visual artist and performer in Naarm (Melbourne). With a background as a vocalist, she works across mediums, approaches, species and labours in an embodied practice she refers to as 'voice in the expanded field'. As a means to seek more inclusive ways of making and to frame tangled relationships, Stefanou engages in multispecies performance with a family of local others, friends not-yet-made, and poet(h)ic meetings of matter. Stefanou works with sound, filmography, and research as social practice, often working with communities over long periods of time through para-ethnographic field work, vocal workshops, performance making, and filmic traces, exploring forms of poetic knowledge.

Related

A close up film still of Tina with pursed lips blowing air on to a lit candle.

Patricia Reed, Choral Stories and Interdependent Vocality (Thinking with Tina Stefanou’s Motet Fail)
2026