Use Your Imagination at Noosa Regional Gallery
Michael Brennan previews the mystery and wonder of this year’s Floating Land.
Things have been getting a bit tense around here.
I know – that’s the same opening line that I’ve used in our ad on the opposite page – they told me no one would read our ad. That I’ve only got three seconds to capture people’s attention… no one’s going to read a slab of text in an ad… blah, blah, blah! I told them I didn’t think anyone was reading my articles either, so what’s the difference?
Anyway, help me prove them wrong – go and have a quick read of our ad on the neighbouring page.
As I was saying… things seem a little less than ideal at the moment. Power and wealth are hugely concentrated. Heaps of people are finding it really hard to get by. AI seems like it’s everywhere (I even contemplated getting it to write this (and how do you know that I still didn’t?)). We even shot Katy Perry into space. It all makes you feel like getting out of here – of making an escape (à la Katy Perry).
Before we commit to that course of action though, maybe it’s worth weighing up the options – maybe float some ideas around how we can get things back on track.
Floating Land comes around every two years, with artists responding to a different provocation that riffs off the social climate of the time.
It puts art in public places so that it’s encountered by people who don’t always seek this kind of thing out. And it uses that place as part of its material – part of its story.
It really is pretty unique and cool.
I don’t have any pictures of ‘actual’ artworks to show you though, because – by virtue of their pop-up nature – they don’t exist yet. You’ll have to use your imagination.
So this year’s biennale is called Floating Land: Escape Making. I don’t think I need to explain the thematic premise if you’ve already read this far; less so if you’ve read the ad. One of the prevalent ideas coursing through the artworks being delivered is that maybe we should ease off putting ourselves at the centre of everything all the time. Maybe we should give something else a go.
Take trees, for example. Fiona Harding has been talking to them. She’s interviewed a bunch and has transcribed the conversations. You can join her on a walking tour, or listen to the trees yourself onsite via the link.
Lisa Chandler and Donna Davis recognise trees do a lot of heavy lifting for the planet – producing oxygen, storing carbon, etc. Surely they deserve a break. That’s why they’re installing Retreet on Hastings – a day spa for trees, complete with signature treatments exclusively for its arboreal clientele.
Jamie North is bringing his internationally acclaimed sculptural practice to Noosa, but rather than casting work from concrete, he’s using mycelium (a kind of root system for mushrooms). You know, they reckon there’s a whole network of this stuff communicating and sharing nutrients underground.
There are around 15 projects all up, and more than twice as many workshops and events. You should check out the website – if it helps, there’s a link at the bottom of that ad you’ve been reading, hopefully.
Floating Land: Escape Making
Art in the environment across Noosa.
28 June to 27 July
