Fiona Rafferty

MEDIA RELEASE - REMINISCENCE - A TRIBUTE TO JUDITH WRIGHT

MEDIA RELEASE

Wed 11 November 2015

For immediate release

Celebrating 100 years of Australian visionary Judith Wright.

Reminiscence – A Festival of Judith Wright comes to the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, 420 Brunswick St., Fortitude Valley, on Saturday 5 December, starting at 1pm.

Reminiscence is a one day festival of ideas celebrating the centenary of Wright’s birth, and launches a month long exhibition of the same name. Presented by Flying Arts Alliance, the festival showcases visual art, performance and discussion in a series of free events at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

The day kicks off with a performance of Hearts Ablaze, a play inspired by Wright’s time living at her home ‘Calanthe’ in Mt Tamborine. Award-winning Brisbane based actor and director Jennifer Flowers will perform alongside a small cast. The play is followed by a panel discussion where visitors will have the opportunity to discover more about Wright’s significance as an artist, activist and visionary thinker. Moderated by Dr. Janet McDonald, the expert panel speakers include art historian and academic Dr. Sally Butler; writer and academic Dr. Bronwyn Lea; environmental campaigner Gemma Plesman; and artist Judy Watson.

The day program culminates with the launch of the exhibition, Reminiscence, featuring paintings, works on paper and ceramics.

The exhibition will be officially opened by The Hon. Matt Foley, former Minister for the Arts.

The exhibition unveils a significant new body of work created by artists Fiona Rafferty and Frances Smith, inspired by Judith Wright’s life. Rafferty says, “The issues that Judith fought for—such as indigenous land rights and protecting the Great Barrier Reef—are issues that are still relevant today; through this exhibition we celebrate and continue her work in an effort to inspire the generations that proceed her.” “When I resided at ‘Calanthe’ I felt Judith Wright’s presence everywhere, and after further researching her work I was instantly inspired by her intelligence, compassion and strength” Rafferty says.

Reminiscence is part of the Flying Arts Alliance Inc. Curator Development Program, in which five emerging curators are selected to work under the banner of ‘Curators in Space’ to produce an exhibition and public program at the Judith Wright Centre.

The Judith Wright Centre is a fitting venue to celebrate the life of its visionary namesake where the exhibition will run from 5 December 2015 to 15 January 2016.

The exhibition will also tour regional galleries throughout Queensland. For more details about the festival program visit curatorsinspace.com ---ENDS---

For further information contact: Kerryanne Farrer T. 07 3216 1322 [email protected].au

Web-ready images available at curatorsinspace.com.

Print-ready images available by request.

Flying Arts Alliance Inc. 420 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia P: 07 3216 1322 E: [email protected] W: flyingarts.org.au Flying Arts is a not-for-profit organisation providing arts and cultural development projects and services throughout regional and remote Queensland, with the assistance of the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and with the generous support of the University of Southern Queensland as well as other partners and benefactors.

INVITATION - REMINISCENCE - 5 DECEMBER 2015

Flying Arts Alliance warmly invites you to Reminiscence: A Festival of Judith Wright

Reminiscence is a one day festival of ideas celebrating the centenary of Wright’s birth, and launches a month long exhibition of the same name. The festival showcases visual art, performance and discussion in a series of free events at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

The exhibition will be officially opened by The Hon. Matt Foley, former Minister for the Arts.

The exhibition unveils a significant new body of work created by artists Fiona Rafferty and Frances Smith, inspired by Judith Wright’s life.

When: Festival Program - Saturday 5 December 2015, from 1:00 pm,

Official exhibition opening - Saturday 5 December 2015, 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm.

Where: Shopfront Gallery, Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, 420 Brunswick St., Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.

Light refreshments provided, cash bar.

RSVP - 07 3216 1322

projects@flying arts.org.au

The exhibition will be open in the Shopfront Gallery from 5 December 2015 to 15 January 2016.

Flying Arts Alliance Inc. 420 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia P: 07 3216 1322 E: [email protected] W: flyingarts.org.au Flying Arts is a not-for-profit organisation providing arts and cultural development projects and services throughout regional and remote Queensland, with the assistance of the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, and with the generous support of the University of Southern Queensland as well as other partners and benefactors.

REMINISCENCE - ARTIST STATEMENT

In 2013, I spent five months living in the former home of Judith Wright on Tamborine Mountain. Calanthe was the home she shared with philosopher, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith, and Tamborine Mountain is her final resting place. Calanthe gave me the time and the space to get to know Wright and I felt her presence everywhere, particularly in her beloved garden. As a teenager I studied her poetry and many years later, while working in the field of conservation in Western Australia, I learnt more about Wright, the conservationist and advocate for Aboriginal rights. Her poetry, her passion for the environment and her commitment to righting the wrongs facing Australia’s first people, resonated with me.

During my time at Calanthe, I discovered that the year 1915 played a significant part in her life. In 1915 the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli and Judith Wright was born. Her birth, in a time when the world was at war, influenced the way she viewed the environment around her.

There seems to be very little known about a quite remarkable woman, who was a visionary in many ways and achieved enormous success in her lifetime, without the fanfare that the media today would have embraced with vigour. Through the creation of a body of work that celebrates Wright’s life, I hope to bring her to the attention of new audiences and to re-kindle the affection of many who are already familiar with her.

“Reminiscence”, the title of this exhibition, references a poem by Wright of the same name and addresses themes of loss and memory. Through a series of drawings that pay homage to the environment, ever diminishing under the weight of political and corporate greed, I have focused on areas within Australia that are currently causing concern. Over fifty years ago Wright gave the environment a voice through her writing and in “Reminiscence” her voice is re-visited and amplified through my work.

I have chosen to use very fine pens, paper and hand-stitching to represent Wright and her work. The use of pen and the direct contact with my pen to paper is reminiscent of the way that Wright wrote her letters. So many of her daily letters were written by hand and in a world fuelled by screens and technology, the human touch is becoming less. The use of stitching is important in my work, as the themes are stitched together in a metaphoric sense and also in a tactile way, by piercing the paper surface. A tenuous connection occurs that has the ability to tear and thus destroy the very thing that has been created. There is an immediacy conveyed through direct contact with the fragile surface and the marks cannot be erased once they have been made. This also reflects the nature of invasive mining that scars the landscape irreversibly.

“Conscience of My Country” is the work that I feel represents the way Wright felt about our country, the landscape, and the scarring impact of mining on areas of great beauty. It tells a visual story with symbols and words that provide indicators of what is occurring at mine-sites around Australia. At a distance, the work appears to be a landscape, but it tells a quite different story, much in the same way that Wright told her stories through her poetry, about man’s impact on our environment and the lack of thought and care for the future generations of man.

I hope that I have succeeded in some small way in paying homage to Judith Wright, the inspiration for this body of work, in this centenary year of her birth.

Fiona Rafferty – (Spring Creek Station, Narrabri – October 2015)