Category: Uncategorised

As part of the Food Stories project, we’ve been working with Moonah Primary School in Hobart, and with Reuben Parker-Greer from the Museum of Old and New Art, or MONA. Reuben runs a scheme that supports kitchen garden initiatives at schools located near MONA, including Moonah Primary. As the National Museum and MONA share an interest in the amazing work that Moonah Primary has achieved in their school kitchen and garden, we decided to...

Last weekend, as the sun dropped behind the Murrumbidgee River at Narrandera in southern New South Wales, hundreds of people gathered to watch Haunting, a major projection artwork developed by the Museum’s artist-in-residence Vic McEwan. Haunting considers the dramatic transformation of the Murrumbidgee region and much of southern Australia from grassland and bush into a modern agricultural landscape, and the still unfurling consequences of past actions for people, other species, places and climate. The performance was part of...

What meanings arise when we return historic objects to the active terrains that marked and shaped them? Over the past couple of weeks, during one of the coldest Canberra winters in a decade or more, I’ve been working at night with Vic McEwan on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, where pioneering wheat breeder William Farrer undertook experiments that helped transform the grassy woodlands of southern Australia into modern farmland. 

On Sunday 9th August at 3 pm, National Museum curator George Main and I will be giving a free public presentation at Hotel Hotel in Canberra, exploring my role as an artist-in-residence at the Museum and how our common interest in people and place is leading to fascinating collaborations unfolding through 2015. I have just delivered the second public outcome of my residency, as part of an event called ‘Night...

National Tree Day, on Sunday the 26th of July, is an opportunity to celebrate the value of trees in our lives, a value that arises from the historical and ecological networks to which trees, and people, are inextricably bound. A range of collections held here at the National Museum of Australia record the respect and love felt by generations of Australians towards trees and their varied qualities. On display in the Landmarks gallery is a well-worn tree planting...

How time flies. It’s nearly six months into my year long residency at the National Museum and there’s still so much to think about, explore, uncover and reflect upon. I started my time here by creating a performance on the Paddle Steamer Enterprise, one of the world’s oldest paddle steamers, moored on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin. Researching its many different histories lead to a series of video projections...