Firstdraft (Gadigal Country/Sydney) presents Soft Cell, an exhibition about navigating nebulous and unclear borders, undefined barriers and ambiguous social constructs. These walls are not always physical or visible and are built on silent, ever changing hierarchies and exclusions. Encountering opaque, veiled edges reveals the precarity of our circumstances. In contrast to formal, rigid, clearly outlined standards, the cryptic and shifting expectations of soft cells are spaces of eroded mobility, ambivalence and diluted security.

This exhibition brings together works by five artists from the 2023 Firstdraft program that negotiate how these faint boundaries and vague conventions constrict, restrict, limit access or reveal limitations.