Very sad news. John Sweet died on Thursday after a few years with cancer. His beloved partner Christene has cared for him through his illness, and John knew he was immersed in the love of family and friends the whole time. He was the initiator of our “Sugar vs the Reef?” project, which he kicked […]
VIDEOS: Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein made this video doco in the lead up to Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers in July 2017. It was screened as the finale of the event as the sun went down. The documentary shows the work of Simon Mattsson in developing regenerative agriculture methods for sugarcane, and tells the […]
Recently I was invited to contribute a short piece of writing for an education resource associated with a soil art project in Sydney. I reprint it here as it’s entirely relevant to the Sugar vs the Reef? project. Cheers, Lucas * * * Dirt → soil → earth: the art of building life. Living in […]
As part of our exhibition at Artspace Mackay, we worked with the gallery’s fantastic team of curators, designers and public programs people to make this little catalogue. It contains some contextualising images, and an edited conversation with Fiona Vuibeqa about the processes and outcomes of our engagement in Mackay between 2014 and 2018. Here’s a […]
The following is a media release from Artspace Mackay, posted on the Mackay Regional Council website: – – – An exhibition opening at Artspace Mackay tomorrow is called Sugar vs the Reef? However, the theme is not one of conflict, but rather in-depth collaboration. Wollongong artists Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein have been visiting the […]
Kim and Lucas are off to Mackay on Wednesday to start setting up our exhibition at Artspace Mackay. It’s been a long time coming! We have lots of different elements to share – video, drawings, objects, hats, diagrams, hay bales, drone photographs, songs. There’s no way to cram into a gallery all the things that […]
The world’s tallest tree is the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). It is indigenous to northern California and during our research trip to California and Nevada in May 2018, we were lucky enough to spend a peaceful three days nestled in a Sequoia forest at Salmon Creek Farm in Mendocino County, northern California. This 35 acre […]
The idea, cooked up with Simon Mattsson and John Sweet, for a demonstration farm for the sugarcane industry has been kicking around for a few years now. This week Kim and I reconvened to think about pushing it a bit further. We’re working with an architect to sketch up a visualisation of the facility. The […]
The town of Lone Pine, California, with the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background Lucas and I travelled to California and Nevada in April 2018 to have a look at what others are doing in the field of socially engaged art practice. It took many weeks to line up various people and venues to visit, […]
I was prompted to write this post by a short radio piece on the ABC stating that the Great Barrier Reef is likely to suffer bleaching every two years in the future, because we haven’t acted to stop global warming. Here’s the audio, which was on The World Today, on Thursday 5 July 2018. […]