For her film I am not the sky, 2017, Helen Dowling travelled to Australia. Conquered by the Europeans during the eighteenth century, it was labelled as a ’no man's land', Terra Nullius, despite the presence of an indigenous population. In her video Dowling wishes to undermine the notion of 'vacancy', uninhabited territory, and at the same time explore the role that the imagination plays in this. Filmed from various perspectives, the Australian landscape reflects the outside world. The movement of the rotating black sphere has a hypnotic effect, literally obstructing an open view of the landscape and thus evoking the awareness that we are partially blind to what we see, that on the one hand there is the sensation of discovery and, on the other, the realization that we are not on a journey if we are not able to break away from ourselves and the surroundings in which we exist. Dowling asks herself what is needed in order to experience a new environment. She observes on the basis of a physical perspective (by way of filming), but also from an imaginary perspective - via the idea that the imagination is in many ways not connected to reality, and even manipulates our view of reality.