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.

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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.

Stephanie Radok

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.

Simon Torok

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.

Leo Davis

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

Ric Spencer

White Noise

Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne 17 August - 23 October 2005 Curated by Mike Stubbs

Luke Jaaniste

Red Shoe Delivery Service

Melbourne International Arts Festival George Adams Gallery, the Arts Centre and various locations around Melbourne 7 - 22 October 2005

Juliette Peers

Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh

Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh by Valda Blundell and Danny Woolagoodja Fremantle Arts Centre Press 2005, RRP $35

Janet Maughan

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.

Ian Hamilton

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.

Brett Adlington

David Martin: In Visible Light

Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania 8 July - 7 August 2005

Briony Downes

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.

Stephanie Britton

Mark Siebert: Out of Circulation

Downtown Artspace, Adelaide 7 - 24 September 2005

Stephanie Radok

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