Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes
- When 21 Jun - 7 Sep 2019
- Where
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Address
CNR OXFORD ST & GREENS RD, PADDINGTON NSW 2021
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Hours
TUES TO SAT, 10AM–5PM
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Phone
+61 2 8936 0888
'Material Place' gathers artists who are thinking through the materiality of the Australian landscape and its representation — whether in local ochres or on Google Earth. The intricate connection between places and peoples is a focus of reflection for many of the artists, some of whom chart First Nations' intergenerational relationships to Country. The exhibition also explores how intertwined political and economic forces can reshape a place for generations to come, with particular concern for environmental degradation and how the impact of mining and fracking reverberates beyond a single site.
From soaring aerial views to microscopic illustrations, degraded maps and speculative models, the exhibition considers how representations of the land can transform our relationship with the environment. 'Material Place' expresses that in order to represent the Australian landscape, we must firstly grapple with our place within it.
Artists
Robert Andrew
Tully Arnot
Megan Cope
Brodie Ellis
Bonita Ely
Lu Forsberg
Gunybi Ganambarr
Dale Harding
Mabel Juli
Nicholas Mangan
Yukultji Napangati
and Rachel O’Reilly
Curator
Ellie Buttrose (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art)
Lu Forsberg, Downstream (Mount Morgan and Mount Oxide) 2018. Installation view, ‘Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes’, UNSW Galleries, 2019. Photo: Zan Wimberley
Public Program
Symposium: From Site to Place
Saturday 22 June - Sunday 23 June
UNSW Galleries & Art Gallery of NSW
Presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of NSW, 'From Site to Place' is a two-day symposium convening artists, thinkers and poets for a conversation about land and space within the intertwined contexts of neoliberalism, settler colonialism and environmental degradation.
Talks, panel discussions and screenings connect the exhibition framework developed by curator Ellie Buttrose where contemporary artists challenge static and generalist readings of the Australian landscape alongside the call by academics Eve Tuck and Marcia Mckenzie to ‘…move beyond understandings of place as neutral background… as a bounded and antiquated concept, or as only physical landscape, to instead theorise and practice place more deeply’.
Day one takes place at UNSW Galleries and day two at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Lecture: Macarena Gómez-Barris
5.30pm Tuesday 16 July, UNSW Galleries
Author and Academic Macarena Gómez-Barris presents a lecture titled 'Submerged Memories of the Colonial Anthropocene'. In the era of the colonial anthropocene how do we address histories of loss and disappearance in relation to resurgence? Thinking with Patagonia and other southern spaces, and the Fuegan peoples, Gómez-Barris examines how we might address decolonial representation as working to a politics of and critical solidarity with Indigenous cultural memory, presence, and planetary futures.
Introduction by Dr Verónica Tello, Lecturer, Contemporary Art Theory, UNSW Art & Design. Response by Anastasia Murney, PhD candidate Art Theory, UNSW Art & Design. Presented in partnership with UNSW Art & Design Research Forum, and in conjunction with 'Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes' and 'Rachel O'Reilly: The Gas Imaginary'.
Talk & Workshop: Knitting Nannas Against Gas
2pm Saturday 20 July, UNSW Galleries
The Sydney Knitting Nannas engages in a discussion on the use of knitting as a tool for non-violent political activism before guiding a banner-making workshop. Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG) are a nationwide activist network who peacefully and productively protest against the destruction of land and water by exploration and mining of Coal Seam Gas and other non-renewable energy. Presented in conjunction with 'Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes' and 'Rachel O'Reilly: The Gas Imaginary'.