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.

More from this Issue

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.

Margot Osborne

Trudi Brinckman: White Plastic Cup

Trudi Brinckman: White Plastic Cup Kelly's Garden Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart 24 - August - 30 September 2005

Sharon East

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

White Noise

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

Luke Jaaniste

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

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

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.

Joni Taylor

A Silent Walk: The Sculpture of Stephen Hart

QUT Art Museum, Brisbane 4 August - 23 October 2005

Louise Martin-Chew

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.

Marele Day

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.

Jean Bojko

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.

Petra Campbell

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

View all articles in this issue