Art

5 videos officially selected for the 2021International Migration & Environmental Film Festival

The International Migration and Environmental Film Festival is a not-for-profit cultural organisation that raises awareness about migration and environmental issues through the wonderful medium of film. 

“IMEFF is dedicated to presenting the best of international film, documentary, photo, and artwork that captures migration, trafficking, refugees, pollution, habitat loss, climate change, to educate, entertain, inform and encourage conversations, provokes debate about changes, innovation, sustainability and how to make the world a better place for every creature. 

The aim of the festival is to raise awareness, encourage discussion and inspire people on a diverse range of important migration and environmental issues and to reshape a divisive narrative using film and the arts.

During the festival, there are opportunities for officially selected projects and filmmakers / artists to participate in screenings and discussions with the audience from non-governmental organisations, embassies, ministries, high school, and college-level students.”

So I am delighted that IMEFF has officially selected five (5!!) of my videos for Short Film section of this year’s event: colony collapse, floodtide, The Exclusion Principle, A Captain’s and homeless.

The Festival screens on-line 9-16 October 2021.

Colony Collapse at Broto Art-Climate-Science: Agency

My video Colony Collapse has been selected for an international on-line exhibition, Agency, hosted by Broto Art-Climate-Science in Cape Cod. It’s associated with their conference on 15-16 May entitled Greetings, Earthing: How does global citizenship affect our climate response? As part of the conference, I’m also taking part in a discussion on Agency: Arts as Civics Teacher.

Curated by Margaret LeJeune, the show asks “What exists at the intersection of empowerment, the climate crisis, and radical empathy?  What does agency look like in a post-human world? And, can it be ascribed to non-human species, rivers and/or ecosystems?”

As well as my work, the show features Caspar de Gelmini, Susan Hoenig, Sydney Parcell (in collaboration with Ildiko Polony), Nicole Lehne, Se Jong Cho, Daniel Ranalli, Jacqui Crocetta, Espen Tversland, Paloma Marquez, and DM Witman.

Here is the video of our wide-ranging discussion: Agency: Arts as Civics Teacher.

And here is a link to all the talks from the conference:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmUCpgkFxuy171_LFMEzKaQ

… Click here for more.

Three videos at Bologna in Lettere international multidisciplinary festival

After receiving an invitation to submit work, I have three videos in the 2021 Bologna in Lettere International Multidisciplinary Festival, IX edizione Dissoluzioni running throughout May, 2021. The Festival runs across 12 sessions with 175 authors representing 27 countries. My videos, Warranty & Conditions of Use, The Long Slow Effect of Gravity and future perfect are in the Arte-fatti Contemporanei session, curated by Maria Korporal. Two of these videos Warranty & Conditions of Use and future perfect were selected in the Top Ten Best of Bologna in Lettere 2021!

Shared Reckonings: Catherine Truman at the Museum of Economic Botany

  • Shared Reckonings
  • Restless Calm
  • Ghost
  • Eclipse

Santos Museum of Economic Botany and The Deadhouse, Adelaide Botanic Gardens.
24 February – Sunday 2 May, 2021

In Shared Reckonings, renowned South Australian artist, Catherine Truman, explores the impact of light on human vision and the growth of plants. The exhibition combines thermoplastics and photo-luminescent powders with exquisite, thought-provoking results. Catherine’s work, which is presented as part of the Adelaide Festival, was created following two concurrent residencies at the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium, and the Flinders Centre for Ophthalmology at Flinders University. It was influenced by powerful themes: the catastrophic bushfires that swept the country last summer, climate change-induced biodiversity loss, and the global pandemic.

I’ve been fortunate to have worked with Catherine for nearly 15 years now on a wide range of projects. For Shared Reckonings, we collaborated on a series of videos which are part of the exhibition. I also wrote a piece for the exhibition catalogue.

“What can we do when surrounded by fire, when the atmosphere on which we depend is choked with smoke and replicating particles, not quite dead, not quite alive, that have the potential to destroy our very ability to take another breath? … This … Click here for more.

SALA 2020: The Unwelcome

from floodtide

The 2020 South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA) is mostly on-line this year. I have put together The Unwelcome, a showcase of my video art commenting on the environment, corruption, border controls, colonialism, authoritarianism… unwanted circumstances that, by design or active neglect, now or in a dystopian future, can make us, and those around us, feel isolated, afraid, oppressed, forgotten, erased, silenced… unwelcome.

Click here to see The Unwelcome entry in the SALA 2020 program.

Click here to go directly to The Unwelcome.

The Ferrovores in Atticus Review

My video poem The Ferrovores had been published in leading USA literature magazine Atticus Review. It has since been picked up by Moving Poems (USA) and ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival (Germany) facebook page.

Filmed mostly in the southern Flinders Ranges, it explores the idea of alternative energy sources for food after environmental collapse.

Ferrovores

“this time, this place… beyond open circulation closed reciprocity… closed hydration spheres wrought cast smithed… this is what we are what we eat … “

Iron is the most common metal on earth. Indeed, it forms much of the molten core of the planet which in turn generates the earth’s magnetic poles. The red soils of the world are due to iron. At a biochemical level, iron is essential for human life, amongst other things, making our blood red. In the societal domain, iron is essential for manufacturing, electricity generation, and much more. Certain bacteria can derive energy for life directly from dissolved iron compounds (“rust”) rather than from oxygen as we do. Perhaps, at some time in the future, we, our descendants, the Ferrovores, may need to do the same.

Here is the complete text of The Ferrovores:

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… Click here for more.