“Art is unexpected youth. It always takes a direction you could not have foreseen because art is not linear.” — Richard Serra, 2011
The Art Newspaper (July/August) carries an interview with the great American sculptor Richard Serra. In the context of thinking here about a national cultural policy I find the following statement of Serra’s profoundly insightful: ‘I know sculpture is not going to change the world but I do think the way we understand different countries is by the expression of what arts they put forward and how we extend the definitions of boundaries, of what we consider to be relevant in terms of feeling and emotions.’
I always wanted to hear Peter Singer talk at the National Museum and his appearance at the second of our Platform Conversations was brilliant. When I took up the role as Director of the Museum I said I wanted us to be relevant, coherent and responsive. I could not think of three better words to describe Peter Singer’s insights into the question ‘How ethical is Australia’.
Peter Singer, 15 July 2011
“Narrative is another way of making a moment indelible, for stories when heard stop the unilinear flow of time and render the adjective ‘inconsequential’ meaningless.” — John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook, 2011
I lament the loss of the Flint restaurant in the fire of 23 June. I most recently ate there with journalist Jacqueline Maley of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Flint was a fine and civilised restaurant where one could carry on a conversation (and be heard, easily). The building was formerly the Library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). Many researchers, myself included, spent time there in former years, engaged with that valuable and unique collection.
Opening the exhibition Natural Forests in Bermagui, I paid tribute to the photographers whose images are included: ‘In the nineteenth century, colonists looked upon the forest as a place of melancholy and as a limitless resource. Yet, even in the 1870s, when Nicholas Caire took his camera through the forests of Gippsland, where he photographed ancient and giant trees, there were voices of concern being raised that the forest was not a limitless resource. This was the beginning of the urge to conserve and the preservation of forests through national parks.
‘Those colonists could no more have imagined the devastating effect of industrialisation on the forest than they could imagine it on the battlefield.
‘The deep appreciation of the beauty of the forest is demonstrated in all of the photographers who have come together to make this exhibition.
‘These photographers celebrate the forest, from the microscopic to the panoramic; they reveal the immense variety of landscapes, micro-climates and intimate places of the region; they honour the ancient and continuing Aboriginal connections to these places.
‘Together, they let the forest make a powerful statement for its preservation.’
A selection of images from the exhibition can be found on the website of the South East Region Conservation Alliance Inc. (SERCA).