Slippery though the interventionist tactics of government and self-serving commercial interests may be, most of us today recognise the cost of our abusive impact on the environment. We comprehend, with the benefit of outspoken independent science and green activity, a crucial need to stall things, to turn it all around. This means changing habits and acting to preserve the ecological integrity of remaining unspoiled regions, as well as the Indigenous cultural footprint they bear.
In the arts, in this country at least, the ecological imperative is often (and legitimately) expressed as a critique of colonialism and industrialisation, with an implicit declaration of guilt and hope for redemption. It may also be expressed as a protest, or plea for the safeguard of threatened sites and/or increasingly endangered flora and fauna. Much contemporary art now takes ideas associated with environmental protection and our relationships with the natural world very much to heart. The real challenge, and one that all the artists in this exhibition meet, is to do so using an aesthetic strategy undiluted by either cliché or sermonising.
Image:
Hossein Valamanesh, Fallen branch, 2005. Bronze 160 diam x 7 cm, edition of 3
Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, 1A First Street, Booragul 2284 View in Google Maps
1A First Street , Booragul 2284