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YEAR: 2010 (v1)
ROLE: Co-Directed With James Muller
FORMAT: Interactive Installation With 'Holographic' Projections & Image
WITH: James Muller/Earthbase Productions and Leah Barclay (sound)
WHAT: ‘The Remnant’ is an interactive, installation - 28th May - 16th June 2010, at Mary Cairncross Rainforest Scenic Reserve, Information Centre, 148 Mountain View Road, Maleny, Australia, Australia, a major commission for the 2010 Treeline Environmental Festival, supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. GoogleLocation
OPENING EVENT: 11am, Sunday 30th May, 2010
OVERVIEW: A remnant is something that remains when the majority of that something has been lost.
This art-science project focuses upon an isolated remnant rainforest block set within a patchwork quilt of surrounding blocks in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland of Queensland, Australia. It draws upon the dramatic power of holographic 3D illusion, satellite imagery, surround sound and intuitive body driven interactivity. Participants peer into a mysterious, long tunnel of imagery whilst navigating entirely through their gentle head movements - allowing them to both 'steer' in three dimensions and also 'alight', as a butterfly might, upon a sector of landscape - which in turn reveals an underlying 'landscape of mind'. The work challenges audiences to re-imagine our conceptions of country in ways that will lead us to better reconnect and sustain today’s heavily divided landscapes.
DETAILS:
THE REMNANT (v.1) was commissioned by the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event - an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council, which focuses upon trees and their stories as a means to inspire others to take action for the environment. The work will be presented at a stunning remnant block of subtropical rainforest called ‘Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve’ - located 100kms north of Brisbane near the township of Maleny. Once a small part of a thriving subtropical rainforest region called the Maleny Plateau, Mary Cairncross Reserve is now the only significant rainforest block left in that vicinity. Cairncross is an archetypal ‘remnant’.
THE REMNANT (v.1) draws upon a range of local but universal themes: The tragedy of an ecological ark contrasts with the vision of the site’s bequestors and a local community of support. An argument continues between preservation and pasture; between crops and housing. The voice of local indigenous custodians contrast with the fences and boundaries conception of private property based democracy. And in between these clashes sits the story of a critically endangered butterfly, hanging on through dint of community will and one key host plant found in the reserve. Butterflies and their rainforest hosts are flagship examples of that which we are losing - threatened species who have suffered so much because of us now depend upon us to ‘allow’ them survive.
THE REMNANT therefore speaks for a fundamental rethinking of the critical relationships that frame our worlds - the social, the political, the economic and the cultural, asserting that the ecological crisis is not out there .. but that WE are the crisis and therefore it is we who must now understand how to act.
CREDITS: The Remnant has been possible with generous support from the Treeline Festival, Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve , Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, QUT Creative Industries, Embodiedmedia, Earthbase Productions and Indigenous Consultant Bev Hand, Ray Seddon, Julie Dean and Darren Pack of E2E Visuals .FURTHER BACKGROUND: The Pararistolochia Praevenosa is the sole host plant for the critically endangered Richmond Birdwing Butterfly. The Birdwing must locate this rainforest vine in exactly the correct state of growth at breeding time in order to then lay it eggs and this foster the birth and growth of new caterpillars. Over millions of years this species has become dependent upon this one key vine - and so the relatively recent, catastrophic loss of this vine from its original reach from Maryborough Qld down to Grafton NSW has virtually sealed the fate of yet another iconic Australian species. The current tiny population of Richmond Birdwing is a classic ‘remainder’ species that hovers perilously close to extinction.
In some small way though The Birdwing, like a handful of other charismatic creatures, is lucky –its iconic beauty has inspired several communities across SEQ and NSW to rally to specifically support it – planting and nurturing the host vine in their surrounding lands. Through this new collaboration / regeneration partnership between human and threatened species – the butterfly may yet enjoy some kind of uneasy future. However exciting this may be, this is but one rare case - as numerous other (often less charismatic) species are rapidly declining. Our landscape is now dotted with the evidence of this - remnant vegetation within which known species such as the Birdwing alongside mysterious, unseen or maybe unknown others grimly hang on to life.