Australian Walking Artists - Way Beyond

Correction Mapping: landslip is in a group exhibition with Australian Walking Artists - Way Beyond at Articulate Project Space, 10th February - 3rd March, 2024.

My work is characterised by responsiveness to the contingencies of particular sites. Recurring themes include: the environmental degradation of water and its impact on communities and the natural world; and colonisation, including addressing my family history as settlers in Tasmania.

Correction Mapping: landslip comprises three drawings. The first one was created during the winter months of 2022, while I was living in Launceston to care for my parents and recover from a fractured wrist. A blue and black carbon line drawing, combined with bitumen rubber and titanium white pigment, was layered onto an old sounding (depth) map of the kanamaluka /Tamar Estuary dating from 1888.

The lines were generated from several sources: tracing X-rays of my hand and wrist; mapping my riverside walks around the streets of Launceston; from a mid-C19th dual storm water and sewerage map of London. First invented to clean up the city of London during a cholera epidemic, a dual storm water and sewerage system was later built in Launceston, where it continues to create ongoing environmental problems for the Tamar Estuary.

The lines on the second and third drawings were traced from Landslip maps of the Tamar Valley, created by the Department of Mines, that date from the 1960s. Blue, brown chinagraph and white carbon lines are traced onto drafting film and carbon paper, combined with titanium white painting from X-rays of my foot and ankles. The X-rays reveal how the body is reshaped by injury, the way we walk, work and the shoes we wore over time.

Through processes of retracing, walking, and mark-making, my work addresses the ongoing effects on our bodies, community, land and water of colonisation. It draws parallels between the changes in our bodies and those that affect the land.

Correction Mapping: landslip, 2024
chinagraph, carbon, bitumen, paint, carbon paper, printed paper, drafting film.
184x118 cm; 2 & 3 50x160 cm