RIVERS OF GOLD
International Print Portfolio and Exchange 2017–2020:
An Art-Science Collaborative Project
Context
Jude Macklin and Professor Mark Macklin are involved in an Australian Research Council project – Rivers of Gold: the legacy of historical gold mining for Victoria’s rivers 2017–2020. Professor Susan Lawrence is the Principal Investigator at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Mark Macklin (University of Lincoln) is the project’s Discovery International Fellow, and Jude Macklin has been invited to lead an art science programme focusing on printing and printmaking to facilitate community engagement.
This is centered around an international print exchange in which invited artists from around the world have been asked to reflect on a central theme to promote a transdisciplinary art-science dialogue.
The Rivers of Gold Project arose from a deep familiarity with the places of the Victorian gold rush and a curiosity about the legacy of mining in the contemporary landscape. We assembled a multi-disciplinary team of scholars that includes industrial archaeologists, physical geographers, environmental chemists, and artists. We started with a simple question – how did gold mining effect Victoria’s rivers? The answers have been unexpected and numerous. The inescapable conclusion is that mining changed the way the rivers worked. The waste is still there and the rivers are still shaped by it.
Science gives us the evidence and art humanises the experience of living with rivers of gold. This collection makes clear the complexity and nuance of that experience.
The artists reference local landscapes, memories, travel, personal histories, modern politics and environmental justice. These works speak of the beauty and allure of gold itself and its versatility as a substance that can be transformed into jewellery or used in the electronic circuit boards that drive the information age.
They also speak of the human labour that goes into mining the gold and shaping the objects and the cost in lives and environmental damage.
The collaboration across borders is a dimension of the transnational nature of mining. All of the artists live or work in regions directly touched by mining. The works they have produced speak directly to the shared experiences of labour and destruction and dispossession and place-making in a mining landscape. They also speak to the transnational experiences of the people who moved in the quest for gold and the movement of gold itself which travelled between continents as a commodity and as a gift.
These works are an invaluable contribution that draws us all further into understanding the network of meanings in rivers of gold. Congratulations to all the artists involved and particularly to Jude Macklin for having the vision and determination to make this happen.
Professor Susan Lawrence FAHA FSA
Department of Archaeology and History
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Artists:
Aberystwyth Printmakers, Wales
Organiser Jude Macklin
Artists
Veronica Calarco
Paul Croft
Stuart Evans
David Ferry
Wuon Gean Ho
Mary Lloyd Jones
Alison Lochhead
Jude Macklin
Ian Phillips
Gini Wade
Goldfields Printmakers, Victoria, Australia
Organiser James Pasakos
Artists
Diana Orinda Burns
Loris Button
Robyn Gibson
Anne Langdon
Kir Larwill
James Pasakos
Jan Palethorpe
Penny Peckham
Catherine Pilgrim
Melissa Proposch
Print Council Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ)
Organiser Kathy Boyle
Artists
Jacqueline Aust
Al Bell
Pauline Bellamy
Kathy Boyle
Mark Graver
Toni Hartill
Kim Lowe
Prue MacDougall
Jenny Rock
Lynn Taylor
Queensland College of Art, Brisbane, Australia
Organiser Jennifer Stuerzl
Artists
Julie Barratt
Blair Coffey
Carolyn Craig
Christopher Hagen
Domenica Hoare
Tim Mosely
The Night Ladder collective
(John Doyle, Angela Gardner,
Maren Götzmann, Lisa Pullen
& Gwenn Tasker)
Jude Roberts
Glennys Briggs & Jenny Sanzaro-Nishimura
Jennifer Stuerzl
Download the exhibition catalogue rivers-of-gold-catalogue
Exhibition dates
The exhibition travels to the following venues:
Gympie Regional Gallery, Queensland, Australia 18 July – 11 August 2018
Art at Wharepuke, Kerikeri, New Zealand 16 August – 10 September 2018
IMPACT 10 – ENCUENTRO, Santander, Spain 5 – 10 September 2018
Queensland College of Art, Project Gallery, Brisbane, Australia 26 November – 9 December 2018
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales, UK 2 February – 7 April 2019
Lakes District Museum and Gallery, Arrowtown, New Zealand 1 February – 10 March 2019
La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia February 2020
The Post Office Gallery, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia Dates to be decided – 2020