MINING: gouging the country

Articulate project space  December 1  at   2 - 4 pm

for the launch of the latest Artlink issue 

and the last day of LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND

The world is hungry for minerals and fuel. Is Australia's preparedness to gouge its (sacred) earth any different to that of any other country? The land's value in spiritual as well as economic terms has led to some of the most debated legislation of contemporary times – from Australian Aboriginal ownership and land rights to mining, coal seam gas extraction, the value of the land; who owns it; who has the rights to use it; to sell it; to exploit it; to act as custodian of it. Initially defined as "Terra Nullius" this country is now recognised as an ancient, mineral-rich continent of hotly contested territories.

This issue digs deep into the seen and unseen impact of big mining and its greed for the rapid and ruthless exploitation of fossil fuels. It comes at a turning point for the community in relation to climate change. With the carbon level in the air now reaching 400 ppm, coal mining can never be ‘clean’ or sustainable; 350.org, an urgent global public campaign to keep coal in the ground is growing.

Artists, artists' alliances and arts writers join with environmentalists to raise consciousness about the dangers of mining operations on farmlands, rivers, in remote areas, deserts, and coastal areas, as well as in the depth of the oceans.

• Ken Mulvaney writes on the ancient rock art being damaged by proximity to mining operations on the Burrup Peninsula.

• The tension around funding for arts, science and community enterprise from mining companies which commonly exploit the prestige of arts projects to varnish their image. Arts patronage is used as a wedge to buy off the potential community opposition and the custodial burden is getting heavier for Indigenous land holders in many regions.

• During the mining boom has support to the arts from mining companies been minimal relative to their profits?

Artists include Fiona Hall, Cai Quo-Qiang, Craig Walsh, Jan Senbergs, John Gollings, Ah Xian, and Raymond Arnold. 

Writers include Daniel Thomas, Sam Cook, David Hansen, Michael Taussig, Judith Blackall, and Jane Deeth.

PRESS RELEASE

Williams River Valley Artists' Project presents

LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND will show the work of artists Neil Berecry Brown, Sue Callanan, Juliet Fowler Smith, Noelene Lucas, Christine McMillan, Ian Milliss, Margaret Roberts, Toni Warburton and David Watson, made in protest against the fossil-fuel industries and their role in the growing crisis of global warming.

at Articulate project space
16 Nov to 1 Dec

 Williams River Valley Artists' Project 's newspaper The Stuttering Frog #2 will be launched at the opening. 

Bird Week

image from BirdLife Australia's newsletter

Celebrate Bird Week 19 - 25 October, see more at Birdlife

and Ornitho-logical exhibition and residency runs until 26th

Ornitho-logical

as invited artist-in-residence this month for the temporal Pop In Space at 124 Marion St Leichhardt, artworks are up and installations are made including a great interactive No Honeyeaters by Kirsty Collins (detail pictured). 

The all bird exhibition runs until the 26th Oct and is open on Weds - Sat 11am - 4 pm  

is now in its second month and has plenty of great workshops/events, please check out the program here.

Animal Welfare League fundraiser

at Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay

2013 Sydney Writers Festival    20-26 May

The Sydney BAG (Book Art Group) makes art from discarded books and non-traditional materials. 

'Lifecycle' is an installation of reborn text and Australian domestic imagery. With great images seen here

This free exhibition will be featured in the Foyer of Pier 2/3 for the duration of the Festival.

park art

The Blue Trees in Texas "takes an urban landscape with which you are familiar and changes it for a brief period of time so that it becomes something unfamiliar. We are creatures who like certainty, and we become disconcerted when our environment changes. Yet, we have altered and destroyed much of the global environment. With this destruction, we have caused the extinction of countless species.

The primordial forests of the world are disappearing at an alarming rate. It is easy to restore the trees we have coloured blue back to their natural state. However, without some serious efforts, the old species will disappear. They do not have the option of restoration."

- Konstantin Dimopoulos

Song Dong

Now on at Carriageworks - Chinese artist - Song Dong's Waste Not is a dedication to his late father through family objects kept, stored by his mother. After showing in the World's major art institutes, it arrives via 40lt shipping containers holding 10,000 items and a section of Dong's family home. An amazing work in dealing with grief, remembrance, hoarding, for me - consumerism...and a celebration of life.  A family project, the work is always installed by the artist and his mother and sister. more great images here

A must see -  on until March 17

Happy 2013. Environmental Change...

in the foreground, detail of two sculptures by Gordon Stokes

During December as artist-in-residence in Portland, south-west Victoria, I had the privilege to be involved with curator and artist, Catherine Bailey, in a wonderful group exhibition, Environmental Change - a visual response, at the Portland Art Centre.  The show continues until the end of this month and some of the work can be seen via the fb page here. Most of the works in the show reuse found materials which I find to be a truely inspirational way to make art.... it's economical, environmental and ethical!

Snacks, a few pieces here, depicts remembered threatened animals belonging to the Portland area 

painted on found throw-out food packaging