Mutable Ecologies

(07)Artists

• Don’t Follow the Wind (b. 2015) Fukushima, JPN

Don’t Follow the Wind (2015– ) is a collective of artists and curators—Chim↑Pom [initiators], Kenji Kubota, Eva and Franco Mattes, Jason Waite—who confront the long-term crisis in Fukushima, Japan. Don’t Follow the Wind collaborates with displaced local residents, a committee of cultural workers, and the artists Ai Weiwei, Chim↑Pom, Grand Guignol Mirai, Nikolaus Hirsch and Jorge Otero-Pailos, Meiro Koizumi, Eva and Franco Mattes, Aiko Miyanaga, Ahmet Öğüt, Trevor Paglen, Taryn Simon, Nobuaki Takekawa and Kota Takeuchi. Collectively they have made and maintain, Don’t Follow the Wind as an inaccessible exhibition inside of the restricted Fukushima exclusion zone, a forcibly evacuated radioactive area established in the wake of the 2011 disaster of meltdowns at the adjacent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station that contaminated the environment, forcibly separating residents from their homes, land, and community. Along with the inaccessible project inside the Fukushima exclusion zone the collective has developed a number of Non-Visitor Centers that have taken place at the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Yokohama Triennale 2017, Arts Catalyst in London, CCCB in Barcelona and Extra City in Antwerp.

• Hikaru Fujii (b. 1976) Tokyo, JPN

Hikaru Fujii’s interest lies in the relationship between art and social activism. Through films and installations, he undertakes extensive research and fieldwork to investigate existing systems and structures, and to probe into hegemonic power embedded in social relations and discourses. Rather than presenting his research matter-of-fact, his work attempts to reinterpret events from contemporary issues and perspectives, exploring the potentiality for political resistance.

• Yoichi Kamimura (b. 1982) Chiba, JPN

Yoichi Kamimura explores ways of perceiving landscapes both visually and aurally, and investigates ambiguous relationships between humanity and nature. Working primarily with field recordings, he produces installations, sound performances, music and works in other media which are presented both in Japan and overseas. Recent exhibitions, projects and residency programs include “The Phonurgia Nova Awards 2021”(Centre Wallonie Bruxelles de Paris, Paris, France, 2021), “From Seeing to Acting”(Looiersgracht 60, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2021), “HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme”(HIAP, Helsinki, Finland, 2021), “Land and Beyond”(POLA MUSEUM ANNEX, Tokyo, Japan, 2021), “Floating Between the Tropical and Glacial Zones” (Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo, Japan, 2021), “Michikusa: Walks with the Unknown” (Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan, 2020), among others.

http://www.yoichikamimura.com/index.html

• Yuko Mohri (b. 1980) Tokyo, JPN

Yuko Mohri works on installations that detect invisible and intangible energies such as gravity, magnetism and wind. Her major solo exhibitions include: “SP.,” (Ginza Sony Park, Tokyo, Japan, 2020); “Voluta” (Camden Arts Centre, London, UK, 2018); “Assume That There Is Friction and Resistance”, (Towada Arts Center, Aomori, Japan, 2018). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions such as: “Glasgow International 2021”, (Glasgow, UK, 2021); “The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art”, (Brisbane, Australia, 2018); “14th Biennale de Lyon”, (Lyon, France, 2017); “Yokohama Tirennale”, (Kanagawa, Japan, 2014). She is also the recipient of the Asian Cultural Council for a 6-month residency in New York (2015); the Grand Prix, Nissan Art Award (2015); The 67th Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (2017). In 2018, Mohri, as East Asian Cultural Exchange Envoy, visited 4 cities in China.

• Clinton Naina (b. 1971) Naarm, AUS

I was born in Melbourne, Victoria on 18th December, 1971. My mother, Eleanor Harding, who passed away in 1996, was from the Torres Strait Islands. She descends from the Meriam Mer people of the Eastern Torres Strait, also the Ku-Ku people of Cape York and was a political activist and tireless community service worker. My father’s lineage is from Denmark and Ireland.

I’ve spent most of my life in Melbourne living and working as an visual artist. Several of my family members are also prominent artists.

As a one-month old, I was taken by my mother to my first Aboriginal land rights protest to the first Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra on Australia Day in 1972. This experience started my journey and allowed me to explore my political awareness regarding my peoples ongoing struggle for survival and recognition.

I graduated from Northern Metropolitan College of TAFE in 1991 with a Advanced Certificate of the Arts. In 1992-1994, I graduated from The Victorian College of The Arts/University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Graduating as the first Indigenous graduate in the school of Fine Arts/Painting. In 2001-2003 I graduated from the University of New South Wales, Sydney with a Masters of Fine Arts (Research).

I have also exhibited and performed nationally and internationally.

As an abstract painter, I use domestic materials as my mediums, such as heritage coloured house paint, bitumen paint and domestic household bleach (White King). I also use references from the dominant culture and its images that symbolise language, religion, land, country, targeted, crown and colonisation of the dispossessed.

• Yhonnie Scarce (b. 1973) Naarm, AUS

Yhonnie Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples. Scarce’s interdisciplinary practice explores the political nature and aesthetic qualities of glass and photography. Scarce’s work often references the on-going effects of colonisation on Aboriginal people; in particular her research has explored the impact of the removal and relocation of Aboriginal people from their homelands and the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families. Family history is central to Scarce’s work, drawing on the strength of her ancestors, she offers herself as a conduit, sharing their significant stories from the past.

Scarce has been recognised with a major survey show at ACCA and IMA in 2021, with works spanning the past fifteen years of her career. She was the winner of the prestigious Yalingwa Fellowship, 2020 and selected with Edition Office for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Architecture Commission, 2019, which was awarded the Small Building of the Year award at the Dezeen Awards and the Award for Small Project Architecture, 2020 at the National Architecture Awards. In 2018 Scarce was the recipient of the Kate Challis RAKA award, for her contribution to the visual arts in Australia, as well as the Indigenous Ceramic Award from the Shepperton Art Museum.

• Polly Stanton (b. 1976) Vaughan, AUS

Polly Stanton is an artist and filmmaker. Her films and installations focus on contested sites and extractive zones, presenting landscape as a politically charged field of negotiation, entangled with history, technology and capital. Her mode of working is expansive and site based, with her practice intersecting across a range of disciplines from film production, sound design, fieldwork, performance and publication. Polly has exhibited widely in both Australia and overseas and has been the recipient of numerous grants and Artist-in-Residence programs. She is a lecturer and researcher in RMIT’s School of Media and Communication.

(03)Curators

• Kristen Sharp (b. 1974) Melbourne, AUS

Dr Kristen Sharp is an academic, writer and curator. She is the Associate Dean, Art in the School of Art, RMIT University. Kristen’s research focuses on contemporary art and urban space, contemporary Asian art, sound art and collaborative art practices in transnational projects. She is the co-author of Screen Ecologies: Art, Media and the Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region (with L. Hjorth, S. Pink and L. Williams, MIT Press, 2016) and co-leader of the Migration + Mobilities research area for the CAST (Contemporary Art and Social Transformation) research group at RMIT University. Kristen has co-convened a number of innovative and inter-disciplinary research symposiums reframing the relationship between contemporary arts practice, global urban space and environmental themes drawing together Australian and international researchers and creative practitioners.

• Philip Samartzis (b. 1963) Melbourne, AUS

Philip Samartzis’s research focuses on the social and environmental conditions informing remote wilderness regions and their communities. His practice is based on deep fieldwork where he deploys complex sound recording technology to capture natural, anthropogenic and geophysical forces. The recordings are used within various exhibition, broadcast and publication outcomes to demonstrate the transformative effects of sound within a fine art context. Samartzis is particularly interested in concepts of perception, immersion and embodiment in order to provide audiences with sophisticated encounters of space and place. He is the recipient of three Australian Antarctic Territory Fellowships (2009, 2015, 2020), which he is using to complete the most comprehensive sound study ever produced of Antarctica. Artworks produced from his Antarctic Fellowships have been presented to national and international audiences in their hundreds of thousands. Samartzis currently appears on a $2.20 stamp issued by Australia Post commemorating the Australian Antarctic Territory Arts Fellowship.

• Andrew Tetzlaff (b. 1978) Melbourne, AUS

Andrew Tetzlaff is an artist and curator whose practices focus on the felt experience and complex interrelation of natural phenomena. Reoccurring across his research are interests in perception, incompleteness and nuance as well as themes of sustainability and ecology. Tetzlaff is a Senior Curator at RMIT Culture, a PhD Candidate at RMIT University, and the Vice-President of the Public Galleries Association of Victoria (PGAV). Recently, he has presented works in the Notes from the Field exhibition (MAMA, Albury 2021), produced exhibitions and studio art residencies for RMIT INTERSECT and RMIT Gallery, and convened panel sessions at the Microresidency Network forum (Joshibi University, Tokyo 2020) and the Collective-Kolektif symposium (Bus Projects, Melbourne 2020).

(07)Artworks