M - Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

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might have liked to accommodated because it was too delicate to travel? My background is in cultural history and critical theory, and though I have some curatorial experience, I am indebted to the curatorial expertise of the gallery staff who were responsible for complex installations such as Ken Yonetani’s, Simon Perry’s work, or to the research that went into the provenance of taxidermied polar bears in Australia that were a feature of Mark Wilson and Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir’s work. Ken had a tight schedule preparing for the Venice biennale, so he was unable to create the fragile ceramic pieces that are designed to be crushed under people’s feet. But he made a wonderful Zen garden-like base of raked sand for the bleached coral works bathed in ‘marine’ light – we thought we might have needed to have barriers installed to protect that work - but in the end we took the risk that a bit of the sand might get kicked around by the crowd on the opening night, and in fact it was fine despite over 600 people attending the opening. Simon Perry’s piece, on the other hand, was technically challenging in another way, because he had to fix to the wall recreations of the concrete diving boards at the public pool in Chernobyl – they were very convincing as aged, heavy concrete boards, cantilevered from the walls in an effort to achieve heroic modernity that looked as if they were defying gravity, fixed as they were to the walls of the gallery. As a thematically organized show, HEAT brought together work representing a wide variety of media, including the spectacular taxidermied bears shown by Mark Wilson and Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir. Apart from the practical considerations that might have come into play, what were some of the curatorial parameters driving your selections? A central premise of this show was to avoid any kind of didacticism in the art works, and would thus include art that was not, so to speak, necessarily ‘about’ climate change as such, but nonetheless conveyed a strong affective response to the historically unprecedented changes occurring in the non-human world. Contrary to the stale (if still influential) view that postmodernism has effectively cancelled out an art of social critique or political engagement, we wanted to include work that does not shrink away from the serious questions of our time - entirely legitimate questions for artists to engage with. Another theme was about the diversity of responses to such questions interpreted through a range of different contemporary art media, from painting, photography and printmaking to sculpture, installation, video, interactive electronic media and sonic art. Some of the artists like Jill Orr, Bonita Ely and Cameron Robbins have been working on environmental issues for over two or three decades, while for others this theme is a relatively recent shift in their work. I 74 particularly also wanted to include work that gave a sense of the two poles, the work of David Buckland and Max Eastley on the Arctic from the English Cape Farewell project, and the work on the Antarctic by Georgina Read, and the New Zealand photographer Anne Noble. All these works featured the gradual erosion of the ice, and its implications for all that lies between the two poles. In short, a show about the global dimensions of climate change. In your opinion, what are some of the characteristics driving the best contemporary artwork on climate change? I like inventive works in different media, and artists who are not afraid to take on the big issues. Overall, I am not too comfortable with the art world, with its poseurs and predators, and its careful, clever, market-driven art. Conversely, most of the art in this exhibition had integrity, and as un-cool as it might be to say so, I think much of the work also demonstrated a certain sense of courage on the part of the artists. That observation was also made by Senator Bob Brown (the leader of the Australian Greens Party), in the speech he gave when he opened the show. It takes a certain courage for artists to grapple with an issue as big as climate change without resorting to illustration or didacticism. Some of the work was pretty bleak, some works inspired anger or shame, other works were refined and subtle, some had wit and irony - and some of it spoke pretty directly to the heart. These kinds of experiences don’t happen to me that often in art galleries. Why “climate change” instead of “global warming”? The terms are subtly but meaningfully different, and imply considerations relative to the anticipated audiences for this travelling exhibit. Of course climate change is global, but the word “change” was uppermost in my mind – global warming is a term that for me has connotations of a gradual process, whereas change, irretrievably damaging change, has already occurred, and continues to occur at a deeply disturbing exponential rate. Moreover, in Australia, the region in which Melbourne is located is in a serious condition of drought, and the constant refrain in the media is that the drought, along with devastating bushfires, are a direct consequence of climate change. This is the phrase that is used most frequently, rather than global warming. So the change is here, and the exhibition was the first of its kind in Australia to respond to that change. What is the relevance of environmental and animal art in Australia and how do you think the Australian scene differs from the rest of the world in this?
Mark Wilson and Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir Polar Shift, 2008, installation RMIT Gallery. Image: Mark Ashkanasy. � Mark Wilson and Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir 75
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Antennae Issue 10 - Summer 2009 ISS
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‘Y ou don’t need a Ph.D. in lin
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Simon Starling Kakteenhaus, 2002, V
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BEYOND CLASSIC FIELD BIOLOGY: BATRA
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Brandon Ballengée DFA 83, Karkinos
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empathy in viewers. The intention i
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Brandon Ballengée The Ever Changin
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investigations; for example, explor
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F ood production, energy consumptio
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W hat is a Translocal Curator? We u
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Page 31 and 32: L ondon Fieldworks’ latest projec
Page 33 and 34: London Fieldworks Stalin Animal Sho
Page 35 and 36: and violence; keeping urban reality
Page 37 and 38: E ndangered Species began as a resp
Page 39 and 40: Todd Gilens Top images: Waiting at
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Page 47 and 48: CAPE FAREWELL: THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY
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Page 53 and 54: Patrick Huse Bølgende landskap, wa
Page 55 and 56: Which brings me back to what origin
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Page 59 and 60: Max Eastley Max Eastley recording s
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Page 73: Ken Yonetani The Dead Sea, 2008, ce
Page 77 and 78: Georgina Reid For the Baby, In Ligh
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