Husbandry and the Coporate Collection

Making taste? Making money? Melbourne historian Juliet Peers scrutinises a group of books and catalogues on corporate art collections to see whether boardroom fancies and their lavish publications reflect a wider role in shaping popular visions of Australian painting.

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The Struggle for LESS Interesting Pictures

Beth Field is a farmer and a photographer in the WA wheatbelt facing a curious loss, one she is happy to accept - the dramatic colours of sunsets reflected in the salt lakes which she used to photograph may soon be hard to find as revegetation reclaims the soil. She recounts the changes she has seen in the last decade.

Beth Field

Culture/Agriculture

Agriculture and culture go back a long way. The fact that they actually meet and marry in the word 'cultivation' makes this clear....when it comes to direct experience, city and country are more distinct in Australia than in many countries.

Stephanie Britton

Photographing the Drought

"I used to think there was no link between farming and art...well, most art reflects the environment in which it is produced and the artist who produces it..."

John A Williams

Ingrid Day on Phil Mullaly

Exhibition review Other Refuge Have I None Phil Mullaly New Land Gallery 16 November - 30 December 1994

Ingrid Day

A Piece of EcoCity

The Halifax EcoCity Project is not just the seed for a future ecological Adelaide; it is the embodiment of a new paradigm that is sweeping the planet.

David Munn

Saved by the Demon - Hemp Lives

Cannibis Sativa as a drug, as uses of hemp - textiles, fabric and paper - as building materials, as oils food and protein, for medical and therapeutic applications, biomass energy... so why is there a prohibition?

Jamnes Danenberg

The Cultural Biography of Plants

The cultural biography of plants provides an extremely fertile field for artists to explore. It also encourages artists, and viewers, to explore the interface between cultures and between culture and agriculture.

Susan Cochrane

Plant a Yam, Paint a Yam

Explores the relationship between food and its representation in the northeast of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Remember, dangerous themes make dangerous art.

Michael Christie

Asian Tucker in the NT - new trend, old ecology

An installation work 'Guarding Civilization's Rim' a collaborative effort by 'The Personal Museum' comprising three Queensland artists opened in Townsville in September 1994. The project has been specifically created for and about northern Australia - the last frontier.

Christine Burry

Culture/ Agriculture

Story 1: A story about land owners and nomads. Story 2: Never terra nullius. Story 3: Genetic imperialism. Story 4: The politicization of hunger. Story 5: Kunde and the perception of order.

Pat Hoffie

Art about farming, farming as an art

The daily experience of tending a tract of land in the south-east of South Australia is the raw material of artist–farmer James Darling. The land which comprises Duck Island is watercourse country where sand, water, salt and native vegetation are the elements from which, over decades of passionate attention, he and his partner Lesley Forwood have developed a farm which includes a special salt-tolerant grass for their cattle. His exhibition, Define the Country, at Riddoch Art Gallery in Mount Gambier is a response to this farmed landscape.

James Darling

Living with the Land

If there is a contemporary issue for landscape artist to engage with, it must be the process of developing a relationship with the landscape, even if it is at the level of s sustain[able] failure, a low level antagonism or an uneasy peace. It is as difficult and as complex as any other issue, and it ultimately speaks of the human condition.

Geoff Levitus

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