2011
In Explorations of an Other Space, visual records and artefacts are gathered from ConFest, a community festival that explores and encourages a deeper connection of body and mind to our immediate world.
Since 1976, this celebration of shared freedom has annually attracted thousands of individuals into the arid Australian countryside to immerse themselves in performative happenings, heightened discussions and ritualistic play.
Through photographs, taken on a 4x5 field camera, this series of works investigate notions of community identity and connections between collective human experience, spiritual growth and healing.
View accompanying catalogue here.
2010
What are we trying to escape from in the everyday? Do we endure the physical constraints of everyday or is it the psychological confinements that we place upon ourselves?
This question forms the foundation of Endure Everyday - a collaboration between Melbourne artists Kate Robertson and Alysia Rees.
The two artists who met in 2006 while studying at the Victorian College for the Arts have teamed up to explore the notion of escapism, and the psychological and physical tensions of contemporary society. Both artists come from different disciplines yet were drawn to the idea of distraction, escape and fleeing the restrictions of our daily routine.
2008 - 2009
Snaking its way more than 200 kilometres from the Yarra Ranges across Melbourne’s open plains into Port Phillip Bay, the Yarra River is many things to many people. Having survived and supported European settlement, the Victorian gold rush, industrialisation, tourism and more, its history is as rich and diverse as the landscape it travels across.
From an image of a ship docked at port, a young girl catching raindrops on her tongue, to gutting a fish, After the Goldrush explores the malleability of photography and the fragmentation of our image and information saturated world. Ceramic sculptures serve as a souvenir and reference to photography’s ‘golden moment’.
After the Goldrush embraces a more subjective approach in contrast to conventional documentary photography, blending fiction and non-fiction, utilising collaboration and performance, and blurring the line between subject and photographer.
2008
The 2006 demise of the north-east Victorian tobacco industry marked the end of tobacco farming in Australia, the main agricultural industry of Myrtleford, which contributed $28 million each year to the area.
When the growers accepted a financial package from British American Tobacco, Phillip Morris and the Australian Government to terminate production, due to cheaper labour and production costs overseas, the community was deeply divided.
Don’t forget to look at both ends, a collaborative exhibition by Amanda Schembri and Kate Robertson, is an investigation of the complexities of these issues, namely the inherent health risks of smoking and, on the other hand, the demise of a historical and profitable industry which has affected working class Australians.
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