LANDED/STRANDED – STRAND EPHEMERA, TOWNSVILLE, 2003
The pun in the title of this site-specific installation on the strand, a place where land meets sea, reflects the artist’s interest in text together with a playfulness intrinsic to the work with its quirky yet potent images of people, fish, birds and turtles.
Another more disquieting reading exists in which the underbelly of the work is revealed – the threat to indigenous culture as a result of colonialism and the subsequent marginalisation, dispossession and displacement of aboriginal peoples left ‘stranded’ in their own land; and the threat to native fauna and fish, likewise ‘stranded’, underlining the importance of preserving our natural environment.
