SCANZ 2013: Remote interventions
Author: Cecelia Cmielewski
Remote Interventions describes works produced in rural and remote parts of Australia that have community, scientific and technological aspects to them.
Australia may be one of the most urbanised and coast-dwelling populations in the world. However, our imagined and projected national and self-images also tend towards the expanses of the interior and the ‘bush’. I will explore some examples of what ‘remote’ means in the context of an imagined Australia.
Two long term research projects from Western Australia will be discussed in relation to how quality art making across cultures, landscapes and practices stem from their collaborative aspects.
The spaced: art out of place biennale included projects developed in very remote areas of Western Australia:
BirndiWirndi – Worlds Apart, developed over 2010 when Sohan Ariel Hayes spent two months in Roebourne working with Michael Woodley from the Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation.
On the tiny Abrohlos Islands archipelago off the coast of Geraldton (500kms north of Perth, Western Australia), Nigel Helyer spent two months with the crayfishermen and women to produce CrayVox.
And closer to urban incursions, in a rapidly developing area one hour south of Perth, Adaptation, arose from several years of research at Lake Clifton by artists working with SymbioticA. The resulting works broadly scope the creation of life, Indigenous culture, colonisation, scientific discovery, developmental booms, to fragility in the face of climate change.
