Editorial
EDITORIAL
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.
More from this Issue
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
National Sculpture Prize and Exhibition 2005
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 15 July - 9 October 2005
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.
Red Shoe Delivery Service
Melbourne International Arts Festival George Adams Gallery, the Arts Centre and various locations around Melbourne 7 - 22 October 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.