Output - Art After Fire - Work in progress

I am delighted to have been one of 10 Artists and 5 Mentors selected to participate in 'Output - Art After Fire'.

This is a pilot project run by South East Arts and FieldScreen International. 

The project aimed to support communities in bushfire ravaged southeast NSW, Australia, and western USA, by assisting their visual artists and creative writers whose practice has been affected by recent fires and who would benefit from mentoring in field-based creative practice to make new artwork about their experiences.

One mentor was assigned to two artists and I am happy to have shared this journey with my mentor Heather Burness and artist Katherine Boland.

The project ran from December 2020 until May 2021.

This is a small pilot version of a larger project that South East Arts hopes to expand in the future.

OUTPUT is supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through their Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grants Program.

I live in a locality called Verona, in the Bega Valley NSW. Verona is a rural area close to Cobargo and Quaama Villages. Our place is on a remnant 6 acres of a larger property known as Avalon. The house is circa 1908. The property is surrounded by dairy farm land and is special in that it is nestled in rolling hills and surrounded by creeks and gullys and mountain views. The Wadbilliga National Park is close by, while heavily forested Brogo (Upper) starts at the end of our access road/ driveway.

Below are some images I took as spotfires sparked from the main fire front approached our house (around 2am on 31st December 2019).  These are followed by photos from the day/s after the fire, showing views of our property and the neighbouring property which we drive through. 

With this project I was compelled to focus on my own personal and philosophical response to the psychological impact of fire; particularly the impact of  defending our house against the fire.

I produced a series of sculptural works in response to this. These works look at the notion of house as a symbol of self and my personal flight or fight respone to the threat of fire to safety, home and self. Images of these works in progress can be seen below.

The project is now complete with a online Folio of works produced available on the website at  https://www.artafterfire.com.au/ 

Artist Statement:

This work has evolved from a personal need to process my experience of the bushfire we faced on New Years Eve 2019. Since the fire, I have struggled with memories and dreams of not only fighting the fire but also fighting my overwhelming instinct to flee. In response to this, I began to think of ways to be beter prepared. Sometimes concocting eaborate imaginings of ways to escape with our beloved house, if it ever happens again.

My fear fed these fantasies because a house, this house, is so important to my psyche and sense of self. These memories and subsequent reflections on self, and the house as a symbol of self, led to the evolution of this body of work. I began by making a rough model of our house and as the work progressed, the houses became more simplified while retaining the proportions of the front façade, windows and roof pitch.

I read that in total there were 3000 houses lost in Australia during the ‘Black Summer Bushfires’. 460 of these were lost in the Bega Valley. On the 3^rd of March 2021 (the anniversary of the ‘end’ of the fires), only 90 D.As for rebuilding had been received by council.

I have long been interested in the Jungian theory of the house as a symbol of the archetypal ‘self’ in a ‘universal unconscious’. My experiences of the bushfire reawakened this interest; as I asked myself: why? – Why did we place so much importance on our house and potentially risk our lives to defend it? What is a house? Is it more than a place we feel safe and secure; a shelter to protect us from the elements; a place where we store our precious mementos?  Is it more than a place to eat, to sleep, to dream, to think, to grow… to exist? Is it also an extension of our self; a significant part of our identity?

As I progressed through the project I began to ask myself: But what of our wider environment? Is it not also our house? As is our country, our planet, our universe. In future work I hope to explore these concepts further.