AARON CLARINGBOLD & REBECCA MCCAULEY
SPEAKING TO THE SURFACE OF A LAKE
24 NOVEMBER - 15 DECEMBER 2018
GALLERY 1
How do we define ‘natural’?
If you alter a place beyond recognition is it still the same place, of the same nature?
What constitutes responsibility?
If you do one thing here, how does it change there?
How does the landscape serve you?
Shot across Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia since 2015, the works in Speaking to the surface of a lake record transient and seasonal formations of salt in ancient river systems and lakes, and different direct and indirect interventions of human activity. Some trace the stagnant remains of paleo channels from the side of the road; others record waterways that travel vast distances across the continent from above. Many of these places have been revisited; days, weeks, years apart. Sometimes change was markedly visible, a red fetid drain transformed into a lush waterway, yellow water to green. Other time scales jostle here too, water tables raised, rainfall altered. In some places agricultural run off turns the lakes acidic, in others eager eyes probe for lithium, and mine for the condiments to go with the next meal.
If you alter a place beyond recognition is it still the same place, of the same nature?
What constitutes responsibility?
If you do one thing here, how does it change there?
How does the landscape serve you?
Shot across Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia since 2015, the works in Speaking to the surface of a lake record transient and seasonal formations of salt in ancient river systems and lakes, and different direct and indirect interventions of human activity. Some trace the stagnant remains of paleo channels from the side of the road; others record waterways that travel vast distances across the continent from above. Many of these places have been revisited; days, weeks, years apart. Sometimes change was markedly visible, a red fetid drain transformed into a lush waterway, yellow water to green. Other time scales jostle here too, water tables raised, rainfall altered. In some places agricultural run off turns the lakes acidic, in others eager eyes probe for lithium, and mine for the condiments to go with the next meal.
Rebecca McCauley and Aaron Claringbold are artists based in Naarm-Melbourne who work across image-based practice to interrogate ideas around Australian national identity, land use, and the ‘natural’ environment. Recent work has been shown collaboratively at Kings ARI, and independently at CCP (Claringbold) and published in un Magazine (McCauley).
This exhibition was developed with support provided through the Fremantle Arts Centre’s Artist In Residence program (2017-18).