Mildura Palimpsest #8 - ‘Collaborators and Saboteurs’
9 -11 September 2011
Mildura, Victoria, Australia
Mildura Palimpsest #8 is curated by Helen Vivian and Kristian Haggblom who along with the committee, aim at giving opportunities to both local and national artists, in addition to showcasing international projects and artists from Australia, Tibet, Finland, UK, China and Japan.
The theme ‘Collaborators and Saboteurs’ explores the idea that we are all collaborators and saboteurs in the created worlds we inhabit. Inaugurated in 1998 Mildura Palimpsest is a biennial site-specific visual arts exposition and cross-disciplinary symposium. Palimpsest is significant for its direct engagement with issues of environmental and social sustainability and its remarkable regional location; near the border of three states (Vic, NSW and SA), the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers, one of Australia’s most important cultural sites - Lake Mungo National Park, and set in the intersecting terrain of desert and irrigated horticulture.
Palimpsest, meaning a parchment which has been partly erased and re-inscribed, evokes the marks made by human settlement on the land, the passage of time, presence and absence, and the web of inter-dependence connecting the natural and the cultural, the material and the immaterial, spheres of existence.
My film Undercurrent (2011) will have it´s world premiere here:
Undercurrent deals with contemporary conflict between individualism and collective consciousness and was filmed in Tokyo. This theme is mirrored in the film by contrasting locations: a remote human construction that is now defunct and overtaken by nature and a pulsing, hectic Shibuya cityscape. Formally, the work makes use of cinematic technique, particularly from the thriller genre.
Artists include: Chim↑Pom, Ken + Julia Yonetani, Paul Carter, Tracey Moffatt, Jonathan Kimberley + Jim Everett, Sara Oscar, John Vella, Jill Orr, Brendan Lee, Keith Armstrong and many more.
Full program of the event is here