Crevice Communities Exhibition 2021
Leanne O’Toole
Booti Booti 2021 (after Christian Thompson (1))
Two canvas gallery hang; mixed beads, threads 16″ x 20″
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Australia has some of the oldest lands on the planet dating around 4,374 million years old, nearly as ancient as the planet Earth itself (2); with many Crevice Communities occupying and sharing the land throughout those years. The custodians of this land, be it flora or fauna, have with time, adapted accordingly showing amazing evolutional and environmental changes. Until now. Since the Industrial Revolution and the human race for bigger, better, faster; environmental catastrophes are happening on a more regular occurrence. Droughts, floods, bushfires; to this add rising temperatures, melting polar ice, plastic islands… Evolutional change cannot keep pace, attributing to species becoming endangered or extinct at a rate not recorded before.
Yet our Federal Government will not acknowledge scientific evidence as to human impact on these events and therefore refuses to allow suitable human intervention to remedy it“… Elders gather with family members and others in the community and express their concerns and desires for appropriate care of country, and anxiety at the passing of time and opportunities… In their equation, they weigh up jobs and income flow into a community, and their priority remains with health of country, for they know it is bound with health of communities” (3).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Thompson_(artist) Christian Thompson, Photographer
- https://theconversation.com/whats-australia-made-of-geologically-it-depends-on-the-state-youre-in-83575
- Bruce Pascoe, Vicky Shukuroglou 2020; Loving Country, A guide to sacred Australia; Hardie Grant Publishing, Richmond Victoria p222
With a career in garment design and making, it was no surprise that wearables were Leanne O’Toole’s entry into the art world. Workshops at various forums have added techniques associated with metal work, fabric manipulation, printing and dyeing and the 2020 lockdown reawakened the pleasure of “slow stitch”.
bjtooley@bigpond.com
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Provenance: Invited, not peer reviewed.
