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 […]
In 2016 Lucas met with Richard Brown, director of Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens, to propose The Botanic Gardens Land Art Project. Over the past year, we’ve had several meetings with Botanic Gardens staff and we’ve gone through a process of negotiation, proposal writing and revision. John Sweet and Simon Mattsson have worked with us closely […]
Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers is finally happening! We’ve been collaborating with farmer Simon Mattsson on this idea for ages now, ever since he first started experimenting with planting sunflowers in with his sugar cane a few years ago. This is a key event in the ongoing evolution of our Sugar vs the Reef project. […]
Just before I left Mackay, I had a great meeting with Richard, Maya and Aaron from the Mackay Botanical Gardens. I wanted to pitch them a crazy idea – a crop of sunflowers and sugar cane at the gardens. This is quite different from the usual thing you see at the Botanical Gardens. It’s big […]
It’s busy times for artists and farmers in Mackay. With “the crush” now in full swing, harvesters are out in the fields, those cute little trains are chuffing around hauling carriages full of cane to the mills, and the mills are working 24/7 to process it all. Tis a mighty effort, and all over town […]
This meeting was my first introduction to some of the people in Mackay who Lucas has been cultivating connections with. The Greater Whitsunday Food Network is an alliance of food growers who are building a profile and promoting local food through events, demonstrations, educational programs and a Wednesday Growers’ Market. Deb McLucas from Freckle Farm […]
This morning I visited the Garden of Tegan in Balberra, about thirty minutes south of Mackay city, where there was an open house for the recently established permaculture market garden. Tegan and her partner are now living their dream of growing organic food and are currently experimenting with different crops to gauge their suitability for […]
On Tuesday morning I joined more than 50 farmers at the Walkerston Leagues Club to hear a “breakfast talk” on the importance of soil health in sugar cane growing. The event started at six thirty in the morning. Six thirty! That’s way too early. An artist like me should still be dreaming at six thirty. […]
On August 12 I was invited to attend an event called Arts, Science, Oceans, at the Sydney Environment Institute, bringing together artists, scientists and humanities scholars. Here’s the original publicity about it. The event was convened by esteemed historian Iain McCalman, who wrote a wonderful book called The Reef: A Passionate History a few years […]