Authors: Emma Gibbs and Dr Gail Greening

Abstract

ESR (the Institute of Environmental Science & Research) has conducted a number of research projects in regard to Maori wellbeing, and presently has projects involving views on DNA evidence and sustainable decision making around foods. In 2003 a strong working relationship was established between scientists from ESR – a Crown Research Institute – and the Waitangi Marae Maori Committee. A survey was carried out to find out whether local shellfish were contaminated with human viruses from sewage which can cause disease in those who eat the shellfish. ESR has developed virus detection systems that show when shellfish are safe to eat. The research process necessitated professionals of all disciplines of the life sciences and tangata whenua getting together to aggregate, discuss and share their views, with the outcome being the development of a collaborative research process. This is suitable to approaches founded in Matauranga Maori.

The two year survey began in January 2004 and was funded by FoRST – the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. Members of the Waitangi iwi collected pipi, cockles, oysters and mussels from two traditional local shellfish harvesting sites (Waitangi and Te Haumi) monthly for 2 years. The shellfish were sent to the ESR Environmental and Food Virology Laboratory, where shellfish were analysed for the presence of human viruses (adenovirus and norovirus) which cause gastroenteritis or ‘tummy bug’ and also for presence of viruses and bacteria which are indicators of faecal pollution.

Our research showed that these customary shell fishing beds were sometimes contaminated with human viruses, and that shellfish would be unsafe to eat at these times. Therefore consumption of these shellfish could be a threat to the health of the iwi. As a result of our research findings, from 2007 the local and regional councils and public health unit improved the efficiency of the sewage discharge processes and also the water quality in the area. It is now generally safe for the iwi to gather shellfish from these areas. The regional council funds a monthly virus monitoring programme carried out by ESR which indicates potential risk to iwi from viruses in shellfish. This study is an example of how scientists and Maori can work together to obtain the necessary scientific evidence to help with sustainable management of their shellfish resources.

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.

Author: Lenka Dolanova

Abstract

KRA – Kravín Rural Arts is a project-in-development (since 2009), an art residency center located in a former cowhouse in a small Czech village. Based in an agricultural area, we are forced to work with “indigenous” people, the “locals”. The necessity to confront various “cultures”, or rather to coexist with them, is obvious. We dive into the environmental patterns of the village. Our aim: to use the means of emerging art to challenge the treatment of local 3 ecologies (environmental, mental, social, as described by Félix Guattari). Our method: ecological media art. We believe, that interventions of ecological media artists should range from local-based actions to global commentaries of the environmental crises.

We fight the fossilization of traditions by inserting new, living traditions and festivities. Once they root, the countryside will be more tasty. We organize walks with artists sonifying fences and trees. Walking is a good tool for getting knowledge, “solvitur ambulando” – solving problems by walking and talking. We invent new art tools. We play on barrels, on wind, on local broadcasting system. We construct beehives according to various old and new construction principles.

Not everything works: not many people come, when they might be asked to do something, make something themselves – they are used to be a passive audience more then active participants, their creativity being reserved for their families. We attempt to enliven the sense of community, beyond family units. If they do not want to participate in our activities, we participate in theirs, but trying to challenge them from inside. We input ourselves, artists and researchers, into our community, using camouflage of beekeepers, gardeners, denizens, who we became. In the tradition of artists as tricksters, disrupting rules and conventional behavior.

Cows and bees are the main figures in our new mythology. As is goat as the symbol of Garden Of Art Tools (an emerging outside lab for experiments with solar and wind energy, bee monitoring station). Kravín (name referring to the original function of the place we inabit, house of cows) is a place of cultural memory, also with lots of cowshit hidden in (in metaphorical sense, more than the real one). We poke our noses into it. Rural artistic research has to be done with hands sodden in humus, swearing grass and breathing old concrete dust, bee stings felt all over the body. While city bees have allegedly more honey than village bees, citizens consume more products from “farmers’ markets” than villagers. Countryside is losing its apples, pears and cherries. Diversity and fruitfullness is what we fight for, armed with our unholy trinity: ecology + media + art.

– KRA = “floe” or “iceberg” (an ecological aspect)
– KRÁ = “caw” or “kaah” of raven (creativity and playfulness of the mythical trickster)
– KRAVÍN = “cowhouse” (original function as the rootage of the project)

Authors: Tamsin Kerr and Ross Annels

Abstract

Western society in the past considered thinking as a thing for expert brains to do inside an ivory tower, separated from the creativity of the hand and the ecology of every place. Environmental art begins to address this balance by making an outside haptic materiality matter, by beginning to approximate a more indigenous understanding. How might such approaches become more mainstream and would it make a difference to how we lived in and imagined the world? We understand the world and our human place within it very differently if we think outside, forget, the box.

We focus on some examples of artists and thinkers who have visited, inhabited, and taught at the Cooroora Institute, a place that aims to sing the song of the earth through creative practice. These include painters, sculptors, craftspeople, artisans, musicians, dancers, writers, Indigenous, environmental, and sound artists. Such practical emplacement relocates thinking to an accessible collaboration with country, using both visual and sound texts, unlimited by translation. Perhaps this thinking outside, becoming place, creating country is what forms the basis for much indigenous practice of living, and perhaps it is accessible to all? We begin to know our more-than-human self, to appreciate an active sentience of country, to form partnerships with the flow of the river and the call of the birds, to create an ecological life, through the creative practice of thinking outside.