perspectives
view points | statements
Zane Saunders | cultural consultant
The elements determine how we're clothed, or how we exist on the planet to an extent. It's the overarching author to our existence. The impact of human civilization today, can have a vast impact on the environment. Whether its sustained or destroyed in this short amount of time of our existence. We have the power to be just as detrimental as nature itself, to wipe away a whole environment or ecology or otherwise resurrect it or evolve it into something else. Human civilization has come to a point where it can be just as effective as nature, which is just as scary. Natural resources from here are shipped elsewhere. It's an impact on country. It's not about changing the world but being more sensitive about our approach.
Russell Milledge | bonemap
The environment is a living organism, we share the planet with it rather than it being a resource to plunder and exploit. We can sensitise ourselves to the environment to feel more empathy towards its life force.
Rebecca Youdell | Bonemap
Solution and erosion, the environment is shaped in a geological dance. Out in country you are buffeted by the natural elements. The passage of time, the tempo between earth and human, geological delights versus the flicker of flesh. Terrain formations surpass any time on the planet experienced as humans. Briefly here amongst the ancient weathering.
Tetsutoshi Tabata | 66b/cell
The dynamics of the Australian land with its unique fauna and flora struck me as a total contrast to Japan. Yet as I came into closer contact, observing the land through my Japanese 'lens', boulder formations took on aspects of Zen gardens. Arriving in Cairns and seeing the emerald-green mountains reaching down to the sea, I felt a keen sense of familiarity. Although due to current restrictions I have not yet actually experienced the inland regions of Chillagoe-Mungana and Undara, I was curious to hear of the ancient volcanic history. In Japan volcanic presence is a seismic reality, alive and active or dormant and resting, ready at any moment to wake and roar. As an artist who cannot physically be present, I imagine the journey from afar, and sense the secret, sacred places that lie within.
Mariana Verdaasdonk | 66b/cell
The notion of landscape brings an ecological sensibility and responsibility, especially in the current times of climate change, with seas rising and coral reefs bleaching. The landscape is not merely a scenic backdrop framing our human action. Rather we are intrinsically embedded. In the midst of a global pandemic, we reach out from the longitudinal distance of Japan. Chillagoe-Mungana and Undara become imaginary landscapes, imaginary journeys, where we feel and sense, rather than grasp and capture. Photographs, drone videos, maps and geological diagrams are used as reference materials to create paintings and sketches, clay modelling and digital visualisations, towards a tangible, yet mytho-poetic inquiry.