The Ancestors

The figures were shaped with wire and cane frames wrapped with local indigenous and non-indigenous plant material, reflecting our unity as human beings in this beautiful peaceful place, and the connection with our forefathers and past events on this same ground.

This group of 10 figures respects the ancestors of all of us, but particularly those of the Aboriginal people, the Birpai nation who live here. The sculptures were placed so that the figures faced towards Cairncross Mountain, a landmark of sacred significance to the Birpai people, and in the shape of a crescent so that one could stand inside the group, and pass through their outlines.

The work was inspired by the quote from John Oxley's Journal, 8 October 1818, on first contact with native people at the Hastings river mouth: "We heard the natives call close to us; and on being answered they immediately presented themselves to the number of ten, taking care to show us, by lifting up their hands and clapping them together, that they were perfectly unarmed".

Bamboo Boat

The boat structure is hollow and insubstantial - adrift on the tides of public opinion, political manipulation, and complacency.

However, it remains chained and restricted, just as men, women and children in detention centre's in Australia have been trapped for years with no certainty of a pathway to a safer future, and no asylum in a first world 'Christian's country.

The idea for the bamboo boat installation came about through correspondence with people in refugee detention centre's in Australia, and the stories of their attempts to find sanctuary in our country.

The boat symbolises the idea of a way out; a dream of escape to far away beautiful shores; an ideal which is far from real for boat refugees.

 

 

 

The Gift

The idea for this work came from the realisation of the nakedness and exposure of the palm trees around which the work wraps - a species which in its natural state would be surrounded by an ecosystem of diverse subtropical rainforest.

This installation reflects the interconnectedness of all living things within the environment which provides and sustains healthy survival – particularly the partnership between heaven and earth that is a gift to us all.

Clean air, water and earth is the life blood, and that of many other more fragile, living things.

In many cultures, the rainbow is a metaphorical bridge between heaven and earth. It is evidence of the mystery and awesome powers of light, containing all the pure colours we know and see in tiny droplets of water in the air after rain. It contains our hopes for the endurance of the natural world and our dependence upon just that.