From Australia: An Accumulation is an imagining of Australian nationalism made through drawing, printmaking, community-engaged workshops, publications and exhibitions.
The project uses the print portfolios produced at the time of the Australian Bicentennial in 1988 as a launching off point. Specifically ‘Aus Australien’, published by Rene Block, and the ‘Bicentennial Portfolio of 25 Australian artists’, published by the Australian Bicentennial Commission. Both have become celebrated time capsules of Australian art and identity. At 2020 and the 250th Anniversary of the Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook, it is essential to revisit what ‘from Australia’ looks like now.
Recently there has been a much needed re-evaluation of Australian history and the legacies of colonialism, and the ways this can be addressed through artwork. From Australia builds from this work and extends the trajectory of historical printmaking portfolios by creating an ongoing, inclusive and reflexive examination of collective Australian identity.
From Australia: An Accumulation was initiated, and is directed, by Trent Walter though the project is coauthored by all contributors. This website acts as a repository and archive for the prints, drawings, texts, process and location documentation made as part of the project. This project is ongoing.
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Credits
Workshop photography: Lizzie Boon, Emily Kiddell, Beth Sometimes and Trent Walter
Studio photography: Matthew Stanton.
Print design: Hayden Daniel
Website design and development: Paul Mylecrane, Public Office
All That We Are are part of a new international movement of research – work – live environments fostering creativity, creative solutions and exploring methods of living. We open our home to artists, researchers and organisations to engage in big ideas and reflect on the things that matter in life. We gather artists and others through Learning Exchanges that are co-designed in a democratic approach to program development that builds the capacity and feeds the ecology of arts in Tasmania and beyond. We incubate, generate and are an accumulator of intergenerational and community engaged arts practice in Tasmania by:
Co-designing sector development programs; Fostering and sharing knowledge, learning and research; and hosting individual and group residencies, gatherings and retreats.
Zoë Bastin is an artist, sometimes writer and rat bag. Bastin works in-between dance and sculpture creating choreography, objects, videos, writing and performances. Since childhood she’s been fascinated by gender roles in dance class; particularly who’s allowed to do what and why. Currently undertaking her PhD at RMIT University, she researches gender by transforming patriarchal hierarchies in bodies and objects. Bastin runs the Queer(y)ing Creative Practice live on Bus radio, performs often and is currently working with a team of eight dancers on an immersive performance called That Which Was Once Familiar.
Bastin has previously exhibited and performed at The Substation, Paradise Hills Gallery, Wyndham City Council, Seventh Gallery, MADA Gallery at Monash University, Testing Grounds, School of Art Gallery RMIT University, Tinning St Presents, c3 Gallery and BLINDSIDE.
Lizzie Boon is an archivist, writer and occasional designer currently based in Melbourne, Victoria. She is the registrar and curatorial assistant at Negative Press.
Creating conversations about mine rehabilitation through art is the concept behind Coal Hole: a project developed to establish a local community-led arts collective who can lead a forward-focused and positive rehabilitation conversation within the community through art making processes and narratives.
Launched in partnership with the Latrobe Valley Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner and local not-for-profit organisation The BIG Picture Space Inc. and led by PollyannaR, a specialist in community-led arts installations, the project allows community members to learn new skills and develop their awareness of mine rehabilitation in a meaningful way.
Critical Culture Ambassadors, an initiative of Salamanca Arts Centre, is for creatively minded young people. Eight selected secondary students from outside of Hobart will part take in a series of events, workshops, Artist talks and exhibition visits. The group will also have some insight into the behind-the-scenes of an Arts organisation, as well as some of Tasmania’s leading commercial galleries, studios and arts institutions. This years cohort, who will now be engaged in some capacity across SAC’s programs for the next few years, come from New Norfolk High School, Kingston High School and Huonville High School.
Joel Crosswell is an artist based in Hobart, who uses biographical stories and events in his work to connect with themes relating to spirituality, existence and the human condition.
Robert Fielding is a contemporary artist of Pakistani, Afghan, Western Arrente and Yankunytjatjara descent, who lives in Mimili Community in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. Fielding combines strong cultural roots with contemporary views on the tensions between community life and global concerns. He confidently moves across different mediums, whilst pushing aesthetic and conceptual boundaries in central desert art.
Beside his art practice, Robert has developed skills across curating, writing and exhibition install. He has worked as a studio assistant at his art centre Mimili Maku Arts, participated in the Wesfarmers Indigenous Leaders program in 2013, and was a finalist in the Macquarie Group Foundation First Nations Emerging Curator Award 2017, which gave him the opportunity to participate in an international exchange to Canada. He celebrated his first international solo exhibition at the Fondation Opale in Switzerland in late 2018, and is currently part of the Australia Council for the Arts’ Signature Works Innovation Lab.
Established in 2006, Kaiela Arts is an Aboriginal art centre located in Shepparton. We provide an important space for artists and the community to connect with art and culture. Our work drives important outcomes for both our artists and the broader Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community.
Kaiela Arts represents more than 90 of those artists and helps to share and support their work. Artists receive training and mentoring at the centre, and the work of many artists has been exhibited around the State, in some cases winning prestigious awards.
We offer an accessible studio and social space for local artists to connect, create and share art. The centre is a welcoming environment for everyone to learn about Aboriginal cultural arts. We are active in promoting the South Eastern Australian Aboriginal linear art styles, which is traditional to the Aboriginal peoples of the Kaiela-Dungala region.
Latrobe Regional Gallery is one of the largest public galleries in eastern Victoria, with seven gallery spaces and a changing exhibition program that offers a blend of unique local perspectives, curated exhibitions of note and artworks from our collection.
La Trobe Youth Space is a youth led adult guided initiative that endeavours to empower the young people of the Latrobe Valley and strives to provide a safe and inclusive space for the young people. The work that Latrobe Youth Space does is guided and developed by a group of 15 young people aged 14-24 and a young advisor from the Latrobe Valley. They are known as the Youth Governance Committee.
Latrobe Youth Space is led by YMCA as part of a consortium of organisations which includes Berry Street, Baw Baw Latrobe Local Learning and Employment Network, Scouts Victoria, Quantum Support Services, Latrobe Youth Choices, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, The Gathering Place, AGL Loy Lang, Centre for Multicultural Youth, National Disability Officer Programme and GippSports.
Mimili Maku Arts is a vibrant contemporary art studio owned and governed by a strong board of Anangu directors. The art centre supports artists across different disciplines such as painting, photography, and publishing.
Mimili Maku Arts is a place for intergenerational exchange and learning, where Anangu knowledge is celebrated daily. It was envisioned by Anangu Elders in order to address the serious disadvantage faced by communities on the APY Lands, and to create potent platforms for Anangu voices to be heard all across Australia. Being a sustainable business for future generations of Anangu living in community, the art centre is not only a space for artistic excellence but also a tool to support real social change.
Mimili Community lies within the beautiful Everard Ranges, around 500 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs. At one time known as Everard Park, a cattle station, the area was returned to Aboriginal ownership through the 1981 APY Land Rights Act. Today, Mimili is home to about 250 Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people who refer to themselves as Anangu.
Mimili’s name derives from Kinara Mimi, a place of water where Kapi Kata (lit. water head / soakage) still lies. Iriti (long time ago) Kinara Mimi was known as Pira Mimi, which means “the moon is just starting to come up” in Yankunytjatjara. This manta (land) and this wapar (storyline) belongs to Yankunytjatjara people, but has become a place for Yankunytjatjara people to come together tjungu with Pitjantjatjara people; they became united as walytja (family). Today Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara people live together in Mimili, we all work together at Mimili Maku Arts, bringing together the stories of our home and sharing the storylines of our foundation, Kinara Mimi.
Negative Press is a publisher of limited edition prints and artists’ books, and works collaboratively with some of Australia’s most esteemed artists. Their aim, under the stewardship of Director and founder Trent Walter, is to extend the discourse between contemporary art and printed matter. Prints and artist books produced by Negative Press are in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Monash University Museum of Art, City of Melbourne, Latrobe Regional Gallery, National Library of Australia, State Library of Victoria and private collections in Australia and New Zealand.
Rumbalara Football Netball Club (Rumbalara FNC) is an Aboriginal community run sporting club located in Shepparton, Victoria. It is dedicated to strengthening the community and bringing families together through strong vibrant leadership. It is a place of belonging, a place that people of all ages and backgrounds can call their own.
Like all country sporting clubs Rumbalara FNC celebrates the history and passions that represent the uniqueness of its community. Rumbalara traces its history back to 1898 when Cumeragunja Football Club won its first premiership. Since Rumbalara FNC’s inclusion into the Central Goulburn Football League in 1997 the Rumbalara FNC has celebrated premiership success across its eight teams. But the success of the club extends far beyond the sporting arena to improvements in the physical and emotional health, education and employment of Rumbalara FNC’s members and their families.
Rumbalara FNC has created an environment where Indigenous people, especially youth are inspired and encouraged to actively participate in sporting community that Rumbalara FNC provides, as well as providing an opportunity to participate in the social and non-competitive aspects of this community. Everyone is welcome at Rumbalara Football Netball Club.
Shepparton Art Museum is one of Australia’s leading art museums located in Greater Shepparton and the North Central corridor of Victoria. Our purpose is to present great art to our audiences, through the development and care of collections, research, the curation of exhibitions and programs, the growth of digital strategies, and by playing a leading role within a thriving arts and cultural sector in Greater Shepparton.
SAM presents outstanding art in Shepparton, and contributes to the cultural enrichment, community engagement and economic prosperity of the region. Our vision is for a thriving visual arts community in which SAM plays a key role, and where it is celebrated for exciting exhibitions and programs, as part of a prosperous, resilient Greater Shepparton.
A significant aspect of SAM’s work is the biennial Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award and the national Indigenous Ceramic Award.
Trent Walter is a printmaker based in Melbourne, Australia. He is publisher and printer at Negative Press, and a PhD candidate at Monash University, Australia.
As the only Artist Run Initiative (ARI) in Central Australia, Watch This Space (WTS) provides a constructive and supportive environment for artists to develop, collaborate and experiment through exhibitions, residencies, performances, offsite projects and an onsite studio community, all within a unique geographical, social and cultural landscape: Mparntwe / Alice Springs. WTS support contemporary art dialogue in the region both inside and outside a gallery space, encouraging, nurturing and promoting Central Australian and visiting artists.
We acknowledge the Arrernte, Boandik, Bunurong, Boon Wurrung, Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Braiakaulung, Bangerang, Kailtheban, Wollithiga, Moira, Ulupna, Kwat Kwat, Yalaba Yalaba, Ngurai-illiam-wurrung, Muwinina, Palawa, Wurundjeri, Wemba Wemba, Tyerrenotepanner, Leterremairrener and Panninher Peoples, the traditional owners of the land upon which From Australia: An Accumulation takes place. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and recognise the continuing connection to land, waters and culture by elders both past and present.
From Australia: An Accumulation is dedicated to the memory of Anita Angel, John Nixon and Kunmanara (Mumu Mike) Williams.
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This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The touring exhibition of this project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia Program and has also been supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, and NETS Victoria’s Exhibition Development Fund 2019. Additional support has been provided by Persuade Consulting. Trent Walter is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend and RTP Fee-Offset Scholarship through the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University, Australia.
For all enquiries
studio@negativepress.com.au
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For contributors: If you’d like to update the captions or suggest sort by tags for your work/s, or to update your information in the contributors page please get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.