Published March 2014
Published June 2013
Published September 2012
Published June 2012
Published March 2012
Published December 2011
Published September 2011
Artist and filmmaker Malcolm McKinnon's current practice is focused around documentary filmmaking and social history, motivated by an appreciation of living memory and local vernacular. He writes about the Illuminated by Fire project, an initiative of Regional Arts Victoria, that involved a dozen artists working with eleven local communities in the wake of Black Saturday.
Published December 2012
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne 11 August - 23 September 2012
Architect, writer and urban evolutionary Paul Downton asks where the great climate change art is, finds some examples and suggests that more is sorely needed. "Have you ever seen climate change activism that made you laugh? While your jaw may drop slightly when confronted with some of the hard facts about climate change impacts, have you ever really gasped at a work of climate change art?"
The artwork Crystal Palace: The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nuclear Nations consisting of elaborate chandeliers painstakingly made from uranium glass beads shown at Artereal Gallery in Sydney and at GV Art in London were the eloquent response of Ken and Julia Yonetani to the meltdown of the nuclear reactor Fukushima Daiichi on March 11, 2011. Senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Macquarie University Doris McIlwain examines the Yonetani's work in the context of psychological responses to disaster, in particular nuclear disaster.
Merilyn Fairskye's work on Chernobyl was serendipitous in the beginning as she visited Reactor No. 4 in 2009 as a sidetrip from Kiev to get a single video shot. She returned a year later to film Precarious which was previewed to Sydney audiences to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl just a few days before 11 March 2011 when the world witnessed the Fukushima Daiichi disaster unfold.
Curator: Djon Mundine Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney 1 September – 25 November 2012 then touring
The current touring exhibition by Jagath Dheerasekara, Manuwangku: Under the Nuclear Cloud (2012) is a salutary reminder that the struggle for self-determination by Aboriginal people continues unabated. Jagath’s project dates back to July 2010 when Beyond Nuclear Initiative (BNI) organised a forum in Sydney to inform people of the impact of a decision made in mid 2005 by the Howard government to dump nuclear waste at Manuwangku, or Muckaty as it is popularly known, 120 km north of Tennant Creek.
On 13 March 2011 a deluge of water swept through the Warrmarn [Warmun] community. It rushed into Turkey Creek from the tributaries that flow northward from the Purnululu ranges and from the eastern hills. Assistant manager and curator at Warmun Arts Centre Cate Massola asks how much consultation with residents occurred around their evacuation and the rebuilding of their homes.
Chief Curator: Qiu Zhijie Co-curators: Boris Groys, Jens Hoffmann, Johnson Chang Shanghai Power Station of Art and other venues 2 October 2012 – 31 March 2013
The Big Easy is a nickname for New Orleans, USA, referring to the easy-going, laid back attitude to life that jazz musicians and local residents indulge in there. Carol Schwarzman, with the aid of her brother, reviews some resilient responses to the Big Hurricane Katrina's path through it on 25 August 2005. In the words of US writer Tom Piazza: "The ‘underprivileged’ people of New Orleans “spun a culture out of their lives – a music, a cuisine, a sense of life – that has been recognised around the world as a transforming spiritual force.”
The cloud/explosion paintings of James Guppy's The Weather Report series of 2006 were made as a response to 9/11.
ACMI, Melbourne 24 July 2012 – 20 January 2013
