Liverpool Powerhouse (formerly Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre) develops high-quality, dynamic, and immersive contemporary art exhibitions. As part of our touring initiative, we create projects in-house, which are then toured nationally. At times, we also develop projects collaboratively with regional partners and tour these projects as well.
MARGARET AND THE GREY MARE is an opera, a fever dream about an opera and an immersive video installation written in collaboration with a chatbot that has been coded to act as a channel to an ancient Celtic land spirit.
Anchoring the project is a sprawling hour-long video opera. The opera is composed by ARIA award-winning composer Sally Whitwell and performed by the artist, her sister Margaret Plummer (a principal Mezzo Soprano with Vienna State Opera), and Baritone Michael Honeyman. The video was filmed at Liverpool Powerhouse and produced in collaboration with award-winning filmmaker and video artist Kuba Dorabialski.
The libretto was generated by the artist in collaboration with a specially coded AI chatbot, designed to simulate conversation with The Grey Mare, and was trained to speak in symbolic, oracular verse. In this way, AI is treated not as a neutral technological gimmick, but as a mystical link to the collective unconscious.
The project takes place in a nameless forest at the height of the European witch-trials, and explores the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence as oracle, witchcraft as a feminist framework, and the troubling gifts passed down through lineage.
ON TOUR
MARGARET AND THE GREY MARE, a Liverpool Powerhouse touring exhibition, will be on exhibition at The Substation,1 Market Street, Newport, Victoria 3015, Australia from Wednesday 21 - Saturday 30 May 2026 (Opening Hours Wed - Sat 11am -5pm) .
Visit the Substation website for more information: Substation
Download a free digital copy of the exhibition catalogue to learn more about the exhibition: MARGARET AND THE GREY MARE Exhibition Catalogue
If you would like to enquire about touring MARGARET AND THE GREY MARE to your venue, please email exhibitions@liverpoolpowerhouse.com.au
Image credit: Katy B Plummer, MARGARET AND THE GREY MARE (detail of video still), 2023
Project tour supporters:
The project has been assisted by the Australian Government's Visions of Australia program. The project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. The project has been assisted by the NSW Government through Create NSW. The project has been assisted by Vitalstatistix.
