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Contributors
Artlink
Alison Kubler
Andrew Paul Wood
Ann Wizer
Belinda Daw
Brett Adlington
Briony Downes
Briony Lee Downes
Cath Cantlon
Christina Barton
Christine Nicholls
Clare Lewis
Damien Quilliam
Dr Jim Puckridge
Edwina Bartleme
Elvis Richardson
Emilis Prelgauskas
Emma Bugden
Emma Velde
Gail Cameron
Gregory Pryor
Gwynneth Porter
Ian Hamilton
James Moss
Jane Barney
Janet Maughan
Jean Bojko
Jennifer Lamb
Jessica Reid
Joanna Mendelssohn
John Harris
John Neylon
John Smith
Joni Taylor
Jude Adams
Judith McGrath
Judy Darragh
Julia Yonetani
Juliette Peers
Kate Montgomery
Ken Orchard
Kevin Murray
Lara Strongman
Lawrence Jones
Leo Davis
Lisa Chandler
Louise Martin-Chew
Luke Jaaniste
Malcolm McKinnon
Marele Day
Margaret Moore
Margot Osborne
Marlene Suchecki
Michael Harkin
Mireille Astore
Natasha Conland
Nicholas Spratt
Nyanda Smith
Paul Downton
Penelope Richardson
Penny Craswell
Peter Grant
Peter Hay
Petra Campbell
Ray Norman
Raymond Arnold
Ric Spencer
Richard Smith
Robyn Daw
Sally Butler
Sarah Farrar
Sean Kelly
Sera Waters
Sharon East
Simon Denny
Simon Torok
Sophie Knezic
Stephanie Britton
Stephanie Radok
Tahi Moore
Ted Snell
Tessa Laird
Timothy Morrell
Toni Ross
Tracey Clement
Vivonne Thwaites
Issues
New Zealand Contemporary Art Turangawaewae A Place to Stand
Issue 26:2 | June 2006
Ecology: Everyone's Business
Issue 25:4 | December 2005
Taking in Water
Issue 21:1 | March 2001
Articles
Braided Rivers: Regionalism in New Zealand Art
Andrew Paul Wood focuses on some of the issues pertaining to New Zealands regionalist tensions, particularly the obvious division of the North and South Islands. Furthermore he looks at some of the opposing aesthetic qualities to have come from artists of the North and the South regions. This is here discussed through reference to artists Colin McCahon, Don Binney, Pat Hanly, Bill Sutton, Rita Angus, Gordon Walters, Milan Mrkusich, Gretchen Albrecht, Ronnie van Hout, Bill Hammond, John Pule, Elizabeth Allan, Dorothy Irvine, Sandy Gibb, Billy Apple, Sofia Tekela-Smith, Ani ONeil, Niki Hastings-McFall, Shigeyuki Kihara, Peter Robinson, Shane Cotton, Ralph Hotere, Robyn Kahukiwa, Tony de Latour, Seraphine Pick, Saskia Leek, Grant Takle, Peter Wheeler and James Robinson.
New Arrival: Brian Butler, Director of Artspace
Interview with Brian Butler, the new Director of Artspace, Auckland. Questions are raised regarding Butler's decision to leave his position at the Los Angeles cutting edge art gallery 1301PE in order to direct a publicly funded space in Auckland and his visions for the future of Artspace.
State of the Art New Zealand
This essay draws on some of the themes and issues raised by the 1997 report 'New Vision: A Critical View of the Visual Arts Infrastructure', commissioned by Creative New Zealand and the Chartwell Trust to document the state of New Zealand's visual arts infrastructure of the time. It is here used in reference to offer a series of (partial, personal and biased) snapshots that consider the state of the visual arts scene in New Zealand. Some key figures here referred to include Gordon H. Brown, Lee Weng Choy, Greg Burke, John Maynard, Cheryll Sotheran, Priscilla Pitts, John McCormack, Pae White, Sam Durant, Lee Bul, Peter Robinson, Ann Shelton, Fiona Clark, Giovanni Intra, Fumio Nanjo, Jonathan Watkins, Mercedes Vicente, Tyler Cann, Robert Leonard, David Hatcher, Louise Garrett, Simon Rees, Michael Stevenson, Ronnie van Hout, Francis Upritchard, Denise Kum, Yuk King Tan, Joyce Campbell, Hamish McKay, Andrew Jenson, John Gow, Gary Langsford, Michael Lett, Heather Galbraith, Jenny Todd, Brian Butler and others.
You And Me And Everyone We Know: Photography
This article looks at the controversy that surrounded Ans Westra's pictorial essay Washday at the Pa, published during the 1960's, as a way of addressing the current trends in New Zealand photography. Emma Bugden uses this example to raise issues of Maori and Pekeha representations in New Zealand art and the renewed interest in social realism among New Zealand photographers in recent years. Artists included in this discussion are Edith Amituana, Andrew Ross, Marti Friedlander, Peter Black, Peter Peryer, Anne Noble, Laurence Aberhart, Greg O'Brien, Justin Paton, Ava Seymour, Joel Peter Witkin, Fiona Amundsen and Neil Pardington.
Don't Misbehave! SCAPE 2006 Public Art Biennial
This article looks at the argument for public art in Christchurch subsequent to the phenomenal public debate sparked when Michael Parekowhai's 5m high fibreglass bunnies became the centrepiece of the SCAPE 2002 Biennial. Velde further examines some of the recent aims for SCAPE 2006 by curators Natasha Conland and Susanne Jaschko who are looking to embrace contemporary art's exploration of different media channels.
Visions and Revisions: Recent Work by Shane Cotton
Strongman here looks at the recent works of New Zealand artist Shane Cotton. Issues of transformation - of an ebb and flow of changes in form and meaning over time, of visions and revisions of and between cultures - have been central concerns of Cotton's work for more than a decade. Through extensive reference to Maori and Christian culture, Cotton explores what he describes as the 'collision and collusion' of New Zealand's two official cultures.
An Artist's Economy: Madden, Stevenson, Upritchard
New Zealand artists Peter Madden, Michael Stevenson and Francis Upritchard have each worked within disparate environments and local economies for some years, in Auckland, Berlin and London respectively. Each of them self-consciously explores alternative economies available to them through the production of art. Between them Madden, Stevenson and Upritchard have participated in such art events as the Venice Biennale and exhibited at the Tate Gallery, Darren Knight Gallery, the Museum of New Zealand, Herbert Read Gallery and the Bart Wells Institute.
Of New Zealand Art and Letters
When it comes to New Zealand publications, the excitement generated by each forthcoming issue is as good a yardstick as any to judge by.
Special (Auckland)
Special Gallery is an activity centre at Level 1, 26 Customs St East, Auckland. Exhibiting artists have included Jason Lindsay, Tahi Moore, Fiona Conner, Seung Yul Oh, Nick Austin, Tao Wells, Daniel Du Bern, Helga Fassonaki, Alex Vivian, Chris Cudby, Dave King, Julian Dyne, Fraser Munro, Eddie Clemens, Richard Bryant, Patrick Lundberg, Simon Denny, Jennifer Mason, Robin Kydd, Fin Ferrier, Ben Tankard, Chris Fitzgerald, Stephan Neville, Lou Darlington and Nate Williamson.
Enjoy (Wellington)
Enjoy was born out of transparency and openness and a focus on critical dialogue combined with some utopian ideals such as being 'Liberated from Commercial Constraints' and has been a place for dissent and discussion. Artists Ciaran Begley and Ros Cameron with administrator Rachel Smithies established enjoy in 2000. Exhibiting artists have included Caroline Johnston, Eve Armstrong and Violet Faigan.
Cuckoo
Cuckoo was formed in January 2001 by dreamers Ani O'neill, Daniel Malone, Judy Darragh (artists), Jon Bywater and Gwyneth Porter (writers). Collectively they created this space as a means for discussing ways to present artist's projects outside the traditional method of running a gallery space. Some of the artists involved with cuckoo are Dan Arps, Kate Newby, Sriwana Spong, Ben Tankard, Janet Lilo, Fiona Connor, Seung Yul Oh and Nick Austin.
RM103 (Auckland)
In 1997 a tiny office overlooking a record store in Auckland was turned into a gallery space called 'rm3'. Directors of the now 'rm103' include Andrew Barber, Kylie Duncan, Kirsten Dryburgh and Nicholas Spratt. Previously exhibiting artists include Bjorn Houtman, Sarah Gruiters, Finn Ferrier, Gaelen Macdonald and Erica van Zon.
Charles Merewether: Director of 15th Biennale of Sydney
It is always hard to characterise an exhibition as vast and sprawling as the Biennale of Sydney as it takes over the city, but every time the Biennale has taken place, it has taken on the flavour of its artistic director. Joanna Mendelssohn has conducted an interview with Charles Merewether - art historian, writer and curator - who has produced what could be the most confronting Biennale for many years. His take is at first glance the external world of war and conflict, of cultural difference and exchange but ultimately he wanted to do 'a show that tried to interfere in the way in which contemporary art was being seen'. Included in this article is the work of artists Akram Zaatari Saida, Elena Kovylina, Raeda Saadeh, Ghada Amer, Ruti Sela, Maayan Amir, Sejla Kameric, Mladen Stilinovic, Milica Tomic, Imants Tillers, Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, Julie Gough, Adrian Paci, Liza Ryan, Sharon Lockhart and Antony Gormley.
Steve Kurtz: Critical Art Ensemble
An interview between Mireille Astore and Steve Kurtz, member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) and Professor of Art at University at Buffalo. Kurtz participated in Home Works III, a recurring production of Ashkal Alwan, the Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts. Lectures, discussion panels, video screenings, performances and book launches, all contributed to the wealth of ideas offered and generated during an intense week from 17-24 November 2005. Astore asked Kurtz about his practice and its relationship to Home Works III.
2006 Contemporary Commonwealth
Australian Centre for the Moving Image: 24 February - 21 May National Gallery of Victoria 24 February - 25 June Festival Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games
21st Century Modern: 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art
Curated by Linda Michael Art Gallery of South Australia 4 March - 7 March 2006
Colliding Worlds, First Contact in the Western Desert 1932-1984
Curated by Philip Batty Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Centre Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts 18 February - 28 May 2006
What Survives: Sonic Residues in Breathing Buildings
Performance Space, Sydney 25 March - 22 April 2006
The Late Sessions
Videos presented by 1/2 dozen Curated by the 'pixel pirates', Soda_Jerk George Street Cinema, Sydney 25 January 2006
Corrupting Youth
Curated by Tristan Stowards Contemporary Art Services Tasmania, Hobart 4 March - 2 April 2006
Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh
Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh by Valda Blundell and Danny Woolagoodja Fremantle Arts Centre Press 2005, RRP $35
Picturing Climate Change
CSIRO science writer Simon Torok summarises the facts about how global warming is affecting every one of us in Australia. The marks of climate change, so far, are less tangible and Torok proposes that it is the challenge for art and science to help people see it. Torok initiated a project during his time in England which aimed at bringing art and climate science together through the use of objects and images to visualise our future climate and in turn provoke a strong emotional response amongst audiences.
Overtaken by Glaciers: The State of Eco-Architecture
Downton and Prelgauskas are advocates for ecological architecture and urbanism and through this article explore a little of what is happening in Australian architecture and compare overseas experiences. Australian progress in the art of ecological living has been fairly slow and although it hasnt matured yet, this article is optimistic in its exploration of some of the encouraging signs. What is missing they say is sufficient enlightened clients and a culture that is ecologically attuned to the artful songs of the biosphere.
Chris Mulhearn: Stand of Trees
Chris Mulhearn is an Adelaide-based artist who breathes the world around him. Where some artists make work in the bush, others like Mulhearn bring elements of those places into the heart of the world of constructed reality, the art gallery, and successfully. His work is recycling to die for.
Black Death: Species Extinction in WA
After 25 years of living in Victoria, Gregory Pryors rediscovery of and new found appreciation for the Australian landscape came about due to his relocating to Perth. Subsequent to this profound experience whereby he felt he was viewing the Australian landscape for both the first and last time, Pryor set out to create a body of work which entailed around 200 detailed drawings made from the Western Australian Museums archives. Through detailed examinations of individual flowers and specimens, Pryor was able to metaphorically travel across a huge amount of Australia and locate specific relationships between these flowers and the lands ancient human inhabitants.
Wetland (as in Disneyland)
In his 2004 gallery installation Wetland, Michael Harkin used the familiar imagery of rainwater tanks and the gentle notes and timbres of water whooshing and gurgling to highlight to audiences the consequences of turning on the tap or flushing a toilet within the area covered by the local water authority. Harkin has based this project on some of the important issues surrounding water commoditifaction and consumtion as well as being developed within a framework based on the ideas of theorist Jean Baudrillard.
Sweet Revenge: An Interview with Ken Yonetani
Ken Yonetani is an artist born and raised in Japan, and now practising in Sydney. Much of his recent work explores the intersections between consumption, desire, and human impact on our environs. He talks here with Julia Yonetani, who, apart from being Kens partner, is a lecturer, translator and writer on art, history, and things Japanese. This interview was conducted in Japanese and translated into English by Julia.
Stepping Lightly: The Art of Melissa Hirch
Byron Bay-based fibre artist Melissa Hirsch is the first artist to achieve climate neutrality through her involvement with Climate Friendly, a goverment-accredited Australian company which allows businesses and individuals to calculate the climate impact of their energy use. As a result she plans to promote her climate neutral art to corporate clients seeking a more eco-friendly image. Environmental sustainability was the impetus in Hirschs choice of career and has been the guiding force in the trajectory of her development as an artist; to produce art in nature, with nature, about nature.
Artists' Footprints (Sustain ability labelling and artworks! What's that?)
Smith offers some suggestions for those interested in the ecological (and social) sustainability of an art work and introduces the notion of EarthLabel as a way of making artworks ecologically and socially accountable - and maybe even more marketable. For more information visit: www.myfootprint.org
Framing The Colour of Infestation: the work of Liz Woods
Liz Wood is a landscape installation artist whose work over the years has included covering rocks with wallpaper and embellishing tree trunks with roses. In July 2005 Woods was selected to be a part of Farming with Mary, a collaborative project which took place along the Mary River in four agricultural communities near Gympie in Queensland. In the case of Woods large-scale works in the landscape, their ephemeral existence has the advantage of avoiding a harmful environmental impact, whilst the visual impact is clearly assertive.
Bowerbirds and the Art of Ian Hamilton
Ian Hamilton has approached some of the ideas surrounding sexual and asexual reproduction amongst organisms from a different perspective to those of biologists in his ongoing artistic studies. Hamilton began his work on bowerbirds when he was an Artist-in-Residence at Griffith University in 1976 during a visit to OReillys national park south of Brisbane where he filmed and videotaped Satin Bowerbirds as they worked upon their bowers. He has drawn many parallels between the creative processes of Bowerbirds and artists and over the years the ongoing extinction of these birds has come to be a symbolic representation and reminder of the harsh ramifications of human activity on the natural world. Hamilton is based in Adelaide in South Australia.
Remediation as art with Gavin Malone
For a decade the art practice of Gavin Malone has been concerned with ecological rehabilitation and cultural interpretation. A former grazing property and thus a degraded ecosystem, the 185 ha property belonging to fellow artist Greg Johns overlooking the plains of the River Murray, has been transformed into what Malone suggests is not just a sculpture park with a Landcare project but actually reconceptualises art as ecology.
From the River to the Source: Lloyd Godman's Ecological Explorations
Lloyd Goldman's twin careers of serious and successful organic gardener and practising artist of great creative energy converge in new and constantly surprising ways to make art about the ecological concerns that underly his gardening. Over almost three decades his art has widened out from relatively traditional landscape photography to include elements of performance, audience participation art and multimedia installation to explore the tensions between electronic consumer society and the ecosystem.
A Torn Parchment: The Murray Darling Palimpsest
Since European settlement the Murray Darling district has been a major site for irrigation and has been established as an important agricultural centre. In 1956 a valuable collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century art was bequeathed to the city and a new gallery was built to display it. Over the years the Mildura Sculpture Prize has progressed to become a non-competitive event and in 1973 for the first time, environment was the theme. With the launch of Mildura Palimpsest, Mildura once again emerged as a central location for experimental art that tackled ecological issues.
TeATR'ePROUVeTe: Social Ecology in French Villages
Jean Bojko is the founder of TeATRePROUVeTe, a project created in response to a desire for a socially inclusive cultural event to be held in the Shire of Nievre in regional France in 2000. Bojko came up with the idea of marrying the 32 smallest villages of the shire with thirty-two artists. The aim was to get the villagers to see their own potential and to build a network with others. The event involved mock burials which took place in the local cemeteries as well as numerous events focused on environmental viability and sustainability as a way to symbolically reinforce the transition of these individuals from craftsmen to members of common life.
EcoTV: A South Australian Experiment
As part of the 2005 Adelaide Film Festival, the inaugural EcoTVC competition for a 30-second television commercial was held to create greater public awareness of key environmental issues. The winner was Peter Miller, a 22-year-old superannuation administrator and writer whose entry showed people hopping around dressed ridiculously as endangered native animals. The commercial ended with the slogan Youll appreciate the real thing...once theyre gone , together with a final shot of a Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby as an example of the real thing that could become extinct.
Drawing on the Earth: Bronwyn Wright's 'Running Dog'
Photographer Bronwyn Wright has been visiting the local swamp lands northeast of Darwin with her dogs for about fifteen years. Her latest artwork at The Swamp draws on her knowledge of this piece of land and on her Spatial Sciences (GIS and Remote Sensing) studies at Charles Darwin University. It is a geoglyph, an earth drawing of a dog that is ecological because it treads lightly on the earth by using only human footprints to make marks that are visible from space.
Drought and Art: 10% and Falling
On 2 July 2005 Goulburn Regional Art Gallery held a community forum to discuss the water crisis in the region. The all-important forum only happened because of art, or more specifically because Goulburn Regional Art Gallery had organised the exhibition Water Works of 16 regional artists works about water sustainability and survival. Gallery director Jennifer Lamb tells the hair-raising story of a town learning to do without water and the role of artists in coming to terms with this.
John Dahlsen: Plastic Arts
John Dalsens work, utilising found plastic beach rubbish, is seen as environmental art. Art debates aside, he has collected mountains of rubbish and transformed it into artworks that really do captivate people. Recognition of his collecting has been made by the Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns by naming Dahlsen as their official artist. Through the material he finds Dahlsen depicts various landscapes and the multitude of objects create a dialogue about our use, and abuse, of the environment.
Performance art and Plastic Bags in the Pacific
The scourge of non-recyclable waste devastating the precious land of the Pacific Islands has become a new subject matter for some of the local performers. A play put on in front of the newly built Parliament House on the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu marked the islands transition to becoming the worlds first plastic shopping bag free country. Campbell looks at some of the ecological and economic crisis in the South Pacific Islands in the year that was declared The Year of Action Against Waste and the methods which are employed to assist with the educating of such issues.
The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize Under Scrutiny
Osborne examines and questions the validity of the South Australian Museums Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize in terms of its proposed intentions which lie in the educating of issues concerning Australias natural heritage and ecology. With a prize pool of $85,000 in total the event certainly offers incentive to artists and attracts many of the countries most prolific artists but in turn fails to provide any intrinsic value in terms of art or natural history. As Osborne concludes neither sales, nor attendance figures are sufficient to justify the museum devoting its space, resources and prestige to this ill-conceived event.
Ecology Network
Free soil http://www.free-soil.org is an international collaboration of artists, activist, researchers and gardeners who take a participatory role in the transformation of our environment. Founded in 2005 by Amy Franceschini (USA) Stijn Schiffeleers (Belgium), Nis Romer (Denmark) and Joni Taylor (Australia), it aims to foster discourse, develop projects and give support for art practices that reflect and often change the urban and natural landscape by working on issues such as sustainability, environmental art and greening cities.
Finsbury Green Printing - The Story of the First Carbon Neutral Printer in Australia
Finsbury is the only printing company in Australia to successfully establish an environmental printing brand, and over the years their environmental credentials have become so strong that they can legitimately call everything they do green. They are also the only commercial printing company in Australia to volunteer for the Federal Goverments Greenhouse Challenge Plus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This article looks at some of the developing methods and strategies Finsbury Green Printing are dedicated to year after year in an attempt to become as environmentally sustainable as possible.
Red Shoe Delivery Service
Melbourne International Arts Festival George Adams Gallery, the Arts Centre and various locations around Melbourne 7 - 22 October 2005
White Noise
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne 17 August - 23 October 2005 Curated by Mike Stubbs
Space Between Words: A Collection of Subjective Narratives
Queensland Centre for Photography 17 September 16 October 2005
South Australian School of Art International Drawing Conference: Drawing is Everything
South Australian School of Art International Drawing Conference Drawing is Everything Adelaide 4 September - 9 October 2005 Ruth Hadlow: Patternbook South Australian School of Art Gallery Dialecticaline Prospect Gallery Drawing is a Verb Adelaide Central Gallery2
Trudi Brinckman: White Plastic Cup
Trudi Brinckman: White Plastic Cup Kelly's Garden Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart 24 - August - 30 September 2005
Adam Cullen: Maintaining the Rage
Adam Cullen: Maintaining the Rage Kaliman Gallery, Sydney 1 - 24 September 2005
Flux2: New Art from Western Australia
Flux2: New Art from Western Australia Brendan Van Hek, Ben Sullivan, Bennett Miller, Helen Smith, Pilar Mata Dupont and Tarryn Gill Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth 18 September - November 2005
National Sculpture Prize and Exhibition 2005
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 15 July - 9 October 2005
Brook Andrew: Hope & Peace
Stills Gallery, Sydney, 3 August - 3 September 2005 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 5 July - 7 August 2005 Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, 23 November - 18 December 2005
Ecology: Everyone's Business
What does the onset of climate change mean to an artist today? We have known about species extinction for decades, and the death of ecosystems; artists whose work evolved around these issues first emerged during the sixties.
XSProject: From the (Dirty) River
Artist Ann Wizer has been on a mission to protect the environment and reduce poverty in South-East Asia for many years. She has battled against indifference of the most callous variety. Undaunted she continues to find creative solutions to make a difference. Here she shares the trials and tribulations of working long-term and hands-on with consumer waste in Jakarta - complete with the stench of landfill.
Modern Australian Women: paintings & prints 1925-1945 and In Context: Australian Women Modernists
Curator: Jane Hylton Art Gallery of South Australia 24 November 2000 - 25 February 2001 Curator: Paula Furby Flinders University Art Museum 8 December 2000 - 17 February 2001
Bias
An exhibition of contemporary embroidery Moonah Arts Centre. Hobart 17 November - 22 November 2000
Looking at Yourself Looking at Yourself
Martin Smith, Sharon Green and Annie Hogan Stratton Gallery, Brisbane 15 - 23 December 2000
Time, Gentlemen, Please
Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 7-10 December 2000
Mining the Imagination
Old Mine Management Office Queenstown Martin Walch, Richard Bladel, Leisa Tyler, Poonkhin Khut 1 December 2000 - open-ended
World Without End: Photography and the 20th Century
Art Gallery of New South Wales 2 December 2000 - 25 February 2001
Another Look: Six Women Artists of the 1950s
Inge King, Erica McGilchrist, Helen Maudsley, Mirka Mora, Norma Redpath, Dawn Sime Heide Museum of Modern Art 18 November -7 January 2001
7th Havana Biennial Uno mas cerca al otro
La Cabaña and El Moro (the old fort) and multiple city venues 17 November 2000 - 1 January 2001
Simulating the Flow
Alfred Deakin was not a man to muck about. As well as being a major player in the long campaign to establish an Australian Federation, he was an indefatigable crusader for irrigation, pushing hard to establish a pioneer industry. As President of a Royal Commission on Water Supply & Irrigation, Deakin visited and studied Californian irrigation schemes in 1885.
Interceptions: Art, Science and Land in Sunraysia
Editor Helen Vivian Mildura Arts Centre and Artmoves, 2000
Reading the Waters
Norman has based this article around Terry White's concept of 'land literacy', a notion he defines as 'the ability to read and appreciate the signs of health [and ill-health] in a landscape'. From a cultural perspective, the land literacy idea quickly compounds itself into a multi-dimensional concept and perhaps a new discipline 'Landliteracy' that calls into question interdisciplinary demarcations, understandings of home, perceptions of the land and how we might experience place. Furthermore, Norman has used this concept as a way of discussing artmaking operations in relation to the landscape and the idea of 'waterliteracy'. Britain's Common Ground Movement, the work of Craig Andrae and the art project website redreadwater.com are here referred to.
Wild Art at the World's End
During the 1970s and 1980s conservation battles were fought over the meaning of wild places such as Tasmania - previously regarded as Australia's deep south - a pioneering place where the normal rules hardly seemed to apply. Grant looks at some of conservation battles both lost and saved during this time, and at one of the key agents for change, a wilderness photographer, the late Peter Dombrovskis. As a result of Dombrovskis' important work, the Tasmanian arts community and two government bodies have come together to try and ensure that this arts/environment symbiosis continues. Some other key artists discussed in this article are Julie Gough, David Martin, Tim Pugh, Anthony Curtis and Kim Kerze.
Dinoflagellates and Art: Jane Quon's Marine Installations
Jane Quon has evolved from printmaker to multi-media installation artist - though she much prefers the descriptor 'ecological artist'. Her installations make strong use of 'ephemeral' media - light, sound - and her focus is the quality of the marine environment, within that the threat to vulnerable aquatic ecosystems posed by the dumping of ship ballast water. Quon has been involved in a number of ecological projects, including installations at the new headquarters of the Centre for Living Aquatic Resources Management in Penang, the International Maritime Organisation building on the Thames Embankment in London and was part of the CSIRO's Metis exhibition in Canberra. Hay here pays particular attention to her installation devised for the Bass Strait Forum in Launceston in December 2000.
Nola Farman's Wind Tree
Nola Farman's The Wind Tree is one of a series of three permanent public artworks commissioned in 1998 by Griffith Artworks, Queensland College of Art, and installed at the new Logan Campus of Griffith University south of Brisbane. The Wind Tree stands on a site that was once occupied by indigenous inhabitants and from the time of white settlement until the recent sixties, the homestead site of the dairy cattle stud Ellerslie. The Wind Tree has been christened according to a traditional pedagogical symbol: the Tree of Knowledge. Ross examines Farman's site specific work in relation to its complex functional and aesthetic qualities.
Reflections on the Noosa River
In early 1999, Gregory Pryor spent 28 days in meditative reflection on the Noosa River. The resulting work and exhibition, Wearing Clothes on the Noosa River, presented the complete drawing cycle of 224 parts at the Noosa Regional Gallery. In this personal intervention in Noosa, Pryor has produced a record of cyclical flow and the passing of time. The artist's written and visual observations encompass minute details of daily life - its sights, smells and sounds - juxtaposed with ruminations on the metaphysical, the power of nature and the interconnectedness of life. Other artists who have been involved with the 'river residencies' at Noosa and the creative documenting of other important water ways include Christine James, Scott Avery and Britt Knudsen-Owens.
Water and Dust: Coongie Lakes
To non-indigenous people, Australia has often seemed a paradoxical, even perverse country. It is indeed the most climatically unpredictable of all continents - a land where seasonal cycles are overwhelmed by unpredictable drought and flood. Dr Puckridge examines this fact about Australia, with a particular focus on the Lake Eyre Basin and Coongie Lake. This article includes text by artists Peter Richards and Erika Calder who work extensively alongside Dr Puckridge in their ongoing pursuit to inform and educate the wider community on the importance of working co-operatively with all the different and varied users of the Lake Eyre Basin.
Karra: River Red Gum
Karra was a visual arts project devised for the 2000 Adelaide Festival. Its focus was the River Red Gum, once the most widespread tree in south eastern Australia and quite justifiably an Australian icon. The project comprised an installation by three artists Chris De Rosa, Agnes Love and Jo Crawford in the Artspace Gallery, Adelaide Festival Centre, from 1 March to 20 April, and a 40 page publication with essays and visual material from many contributors. As curator, Thwaites' intention for Karra was for people to consider their connection with the tree as well as the urgent problems facing this ecosystem, such as salinity, diminished water flow and environmental degradation.
The Waterworks Project
Culturally, spiritually, intellectually, water runs through our lives creating and suggesting connection and renewal. All life depends on water. Like those European explorers who encountered this land so recently, the artists who worked on the Waterworks project searched to make sense of the many manifestations and meanings that water has. It is no real surprise that survival was the thread that connected most of the thinking of the artists. The project saw the work of artists Cameron Robbins, Malcolm McKinnon, Lisa Philip-Harbutt, Jo Crawford, James Darling, Catherine Truman, Graeme Hopkins, Jonathon Novick and Elena Gallegos.
Staring at the sea, staring at the sand: the work of Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion
Humanity's universal relationship to the environment has always been at the heart of Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion's work, and in large part stems from their own working and living proximity to the ocean on the coastline of Scotland in the fishing village of St Combs. Kubler conducts an examination of some of Dalziel and Scullion's installations, many of which offer that most magical and rare thing in art, the miraculous. Kubler looks at their collaborative works General Release, Sargassum, Rain and Melt and the various ways they have explored the Nature/Culture dichotomy. In particular cyclical weather patterns and mankind's evolving interaction with Nature.
A Water or a Light
Water figures in Australian art and Australian history as a vital thread binding together many narratives and imageries. Art that concerns itself with some manifestation of water demonstrates what can be considered a new phase in Australian art about the land. David Keeling, Nicole Ellis, Ruby Davies, Peter James Smith, Patricia Picinnini, Judy Holding and Danielle Thompson are all Australian artists whose work is manifested by this notion of the land and of water.
Thirsty Work
This article tells the story of the Irish engineer CY O'Connor who was appointed to oversee the construction of the pipeline that would supply the Kalgoorlie goldfields with fresh water and whose suicide caused much controversy in the region. The O'Connor monuments throughout the south of Western Australia are now being joined by contemporary sculptures that tell the other side of the story and play on the anxieties buried below. Anne Neil and Adrian Jones have developed works such as Death by Water which acts as a thirsty allegory of CY's life and Water Carrier which encourages visitors to listen to the trickle of despair that is so ingrained in the history of Kalgoorlie.
Art and Landliteracy Forum
The Art and Landliteracy Forum (ALF) was established within the School of Contemporary Arts at Southern Cross University in 1996. It was convened as an ongoing forum for investigating ways in which contemporary arts practice can be pro-active in relation to environmental issues. The program evolved into a series of placemaking/placemarking projects that were focused on contributing to cultural sustainability.
Wasted
Metis is a remarkable fusion of art and science. The first of these biennial events, held in May 1999, was inspired by Rebecca Scott from the CSIRO and Canberra artist Jill Peck, and featured works which resulted from a range of collaborations between artists and scientists. Metis 2001 - Wasted focuses on environmental themes including detritus, recycling, toxic waste and land degradation.
Art and Landscape in Tasmania
Robyn Archer has moved from Adelaide to direct Tasmania's first international arts festival. 10 Days on the Island is a clever poem that steps around the customary wilderness branding of the state and links Tasmania into a productive global context.