I Have Witnessed a Strange River Victoria Pamela
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I HAVE WITNESSED A STRANGE RIVER Re-Placing Non-human Entities within Visual Narratives of Three Australian Freshwater Sites. Exegesis with Creative Work submitted by VICTORIA PAMELA COOPER Graduate Diploma Arts (Visual Art), Monash University (2003) Master of Photography and Honorary Fellow, Australian Institute of Professional Photography in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the School of Creative Arts JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY November 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For their generosity, support and willing participation during the process of the work, I wish to express my thanks to the following: SUPERVISORS Professor Diana Davis – Principal Supervisor 2004-2006 Professor Stephen Naylor – Principal Supervisor 2006-2012 Ronald McBurnie – Associate Supervisor 2004-2012 John Reid – External Supervisor 2006-2012 and currently Senior Lecturer, Environmental Studies Studio, School of Art, Australian National University (ANU) SPECIAL MENTION Dr Doug Spowart – artist, PhD (awarded May 2012) and teacher. As mentor, collaborator, and for his bookbinding and 3D construction skills and his encouragement, challenge and support throughout the candidature. Dr Malcolm Ryley and Dr Gary Kong – Principal Plant Pathologists; Sue Ryley – Sunflower Pathology Researcher; and Dr John Alcorn – Former Curator, BRIP Plant Pathology Herbarium Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), Queensland. As mentors and collaborators in scientific work, for their contribution to and work on the identification of the aquatic fungi and related microscopic species. Also important to the sucess of my project was the shared space within their work environment supported by their respect for the work that I was creating. I am deeply indebted to their generosity of time and their ability to think creatively in discussing all aspects of my project as this was vital to the progress of my study. Julian Bowron – Formerly Director Arts and Heritage, Mildura Arts Centre Antonette Zema and the Gallery Staff at Mildura Arts Centre – Mildura, Victoria For providing an opportunity to create and exhibit work in the historic house Rio Vista, based on my preliminary scientific work in the study.This work was pivotal to the conceptual and theoretical development of the PhD study. ii Bundanon Trust – Nowra, New South Wales I wish to acknowledge the important opportunity that the 2007 and 2009 Bundanon Artist in Residencies provided in my project’s investigation of myth and issues of art, water and the Australian environment. Artworks by Arthur Boyd included with permission of Bundanon Trust. Jennifer Thompson – Collections and Exhibitions Manager, Bundanon Trust. For her generous assistance, advice and knowledge, both during and since each residency. Myall Park Botanic Garden (MPBG) – Glenmorgan, Queensland Carol and Ed McCormack; Nita Lesta and the MPBG Directors For their support of and interest in this work. They generously provided access to the garden and assisted with information, knowledge and advice in the development of the final part of the creative work and the exegesis. John Reid – Senior Lecturer, ANU School of Art ( as previously listed) Further to his support as external supervisor, his substantial work as an artist and as a leader of a nationally recognised programme which engages artists, scientists and local communities with issues of land and water, have been an inspiration in my project. Dr Liz Tynan – Co-ordinator, Research Student Academic Support, JCU Graduate Research School. For her timely and generous assistance with the exegesis writing, her searching questions and for alerting me to the differences between abstract and concrete writing. Her interest in my project was of great encouragement at the final stages of my writing. Jocelyn Wilson – Toowoomba For her generous assistance with the proofreading of the exegesis writing. Her attention to detail and fresh eyes were pivotal in the final stages of the writing. I am also grateful for her support of, and interest in the work I was creating. Dr Sally Stowe and the Electron Microscope Unit – Australian National University. For their assistance in this project with advice and support in the scanning electron microscope work. iii Dr Felicity Rea – Toowoomba For her knowledge in many things on art and science; the many occasions I borrowed from her extensive private library; and the invaluable time spent at the Wooli Research Centre. Jan Davis – artist and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Arts & Social Sciences Southern Cross University, Lismore New South Wales. For sharing her knowledge and experience of collaboration in the Artists’ Book medium. National Library of Australia and Andrew Sergeant – Reference Librarian, Petherick Reading Room. For their assistance and support in the presentation of the final body of creative work for examination and review. Kerry Brett – former owner of property located at The Head Queensland; and Les and Penny Sheahan, Rob and Tammy Irons, former and current owners of Balcondo, Queensland. These property owners not only generously allowed access to their land and assisted as guides through the properties but also shared their stories of the land and the water which sustained them. Robert Witthahn – Toowoomba artisan and bookbinder. For his knowledge, skill and advice in materialising my designs and intent for some of the book enclosures, in particular the boxes for the Myall Park Botanic Garden books. OTHER LIBRARIES, LIBRARIANS, GALLERIES, CURATORS & GALLERISTS • Helen Cole – Librarian, Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland • Gael Newton – Senior Curator of Photography, National Gallery of Australia • Noreen Grahame – Grahame Galleries and Editions • Research Library – National Gallery of Australia • Post Office Gallery – Ballarat University • Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery • Michael Wardell – Formerly Director Artspace Mackay • Diane Shaw – Special Collections Cataloger, The Smithsonian Institute Libraries, United States of America iv OTHER SUPPORTERS • Dr Deborah Beaumont – Australian visual artist and teacher • Liz Coates – Australian visual artist and PhD candidate ANU • Professor Emeritus Des Crawley – Australian Academic and Art photographer • Jan Dean – Plant Pathology technician and former BRIP Herbarium assistant, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) • Chris Holly – independent Australian researcher in both science and photography • Professor Noel Hynes – Canadian freshwater ecologist • Dr Greg Johnson – Formerly of Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR) and Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) presently Horticulture 4 Development • Dr Tamsin Kerr – Independent Arts writer and critic, co-director of Cooroora Institute • David Paterson – Australian photography practitioner • Dr Dorothy Shaw – Formerly QDPI • Dr Roger Shivas – Curator BRIP Herbarium, (DAFF) Victoria Pamela Cooper 28 November 2012 v ABSTRACT Through the medium of artists books, this study explores the re-contextualisation and repurposing of scientific images within visual narratives of freshwater places in Australia. Aquatic fungi are featured in these visual stories as a representative for the more-than- human inhabitants of these aquatic environments, that lie mysteriously, like the Bunyip, beyond normal human perception. Appearing as apparitions, these natural recyclers metaphorically de-compose the detritus of the colonial freshwater narratives to assert the presence of the non-human. Many issues arose from the interdisciplinary work as objectivity of science collided with subjectivity of a physical and metaphysical experience of place. In this contested space, preconceptions of scientific knowledge and values were challenged and then reconciled. In this work I was informed by Gaston Bachelard’s deliberations in Poetics of Space and the concept of ‘science as cultural practice’ outlined in the collected writings of Donna Haraway. Yet this was not a Consilience, as EO Wilson would prefer, but a montage layering of intervention and flow within site-specific, place- narratives of fresh water. The study concludes that the visual montage and the narrative offer inclusive and extended potential to deconstruct rigid structures and then recombine or hybridise these elements into an unexpected diversity of ideas. Intentionally, the reader is not offered yet another eco-political environmental narrative of water and rivers. These stories flow from one site to another, from colonial perceptions of progress and production to a natural recognition of absence and presence, and from scientific fact to mythical reality. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Abstract vi Contents vii List of Appendices x List of Plates xi CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1.1 The Source 2 1.2 The Science 3 1.3 The Art 3 1.3.1 Shaped by the Narrative 4 1.4 The Exchange 4 1.5 The Bunyip Surfaces 5 1.6 The Aims 6 1.7 Navigating the Flow: the Latitude and Longitude of the Project 7 CHAPTER TWO: Context For and Of the Research 11 2.1 Shaping Perceptions 12 2.2 Re-colonising the Narrative 14 2.3 The Case for Aquatic Fungi 16 2.4 Issues around Art as the Image for Science 18 2.5 Images of Science as Art 22 2.5.1 Illustration, Photograph and Objectivity 22 2.6 Order, Chaos and Science as a Cultural Practice 28 2.6.1 The Interdisciplinary Institution 34 2.6.2 Recombinant Space 38 2.7 ‘Contact Zones’: Connecting the Human and the Non-human through Narratives of Fresh Water 39 2.7.1 The Bunyip Spirit: Does the Non-human