Contested Landscapes of Western Sydney

Instigated by Prof. Tony Capon, National Center for Epidemiology and Population Health at the ANU the School of Art Field Study program The Contested Landscapes of Western Sydney took artists to visit communities along the Hawkesbury River on the Cumberland Plain west of Sydney.

Here change in recent land use has seen enormous development into suburban concrete environments, and their supporting industry [mostly Turf farms and golf courses].

Unfortunately, there seemed little, if no prior thought to infrastructure such as community gardens, green spaces, or even considered drainage systems of environmental ethical justification.

While preparing for this trip, and by coincidence, I was attracted to a pile of disused silk screens put out on the Bondi roadside for council collection. Imagine my surprise when back in my studio I discovered the images on them were from real estate jobs, “IT’S SOLD” and “WE CAN SELL YOURS TOO!” Using industrial house paint, I screened these slogans on Hahnemuhle paper, white on white, but in the field any ink image imposed onto the paper had the words bleeding through. Hence, Oran Park Dairy- It’s sold, with Dairy cows lined up for milking on a field of lush grass with the words ‘It’s sold’ bleeding through. And isn’t the state of our national dairy industry still a major crisis to our food security now, years later!

Another series from this field trip was dyed and printed on Hahnemuhle 300gsm, well worn and burnt at the edges, and collaged onto this was concrete houses, roads, urban infrastructure.

These artworks, and others were well received, being exhibited in galleries in the Western Sydney area, and Regional Galleries in both cities and the ANU, Canberra.