A Fleeting Moment
MOMENT 13 •
2002
Ephemeral public art is, by its very nature, tenuous, often closely observing and interacting with the sensory aesthetics unique to the place it is in and provoking reflection on transience, decay and loss. It can be a performance, a sculptural installation, a ‘happening’. Whatever it is, you have to be in the right place at the right time to see it.
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At the heart of the Burra Ephemeral Art Trail is not a story of art and artists, but the story of a community, connection and relationships. While one aim of the project was to enable artists to create interesting, challenging and engaging artworks, it has also built lasting friendships and professional relationships during the residencies. Eight artists created five ephemeral art works installed for a month in the township of Burra in 2016. Artist-in-residence Henry Jock Walker delighted Burra with his painting machines and exciting approach to the art form. Everyone from adults through to the kindergarten students enjoyed the opportunity to get a bit mucky with the paint. -
Sculpture on the Cliffs responded to the site of an Aboriginal massacre at Elliston, where during the settler wars in the 1840s, scores of children, women and men were forced off the cliffs. A sound work installed on the cliffs, The Sea Wailing by Cameron Robbins and John Turpie drew on the ocean's movement to play 'a moaning lament', to respond to 'the stigma of the "Elliston Incident" and ... try to redress some of the bad feeling.' Watch and listen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HveSUVJzHR0 -
Elliston: Sculpture on the Cliffs, Evil Eye, Trish Blann and Rhonda Ogilvie of Coffin Bay, droppers and buoys, 2004. The buoys used were found on the beach. This land based rubbish has become totems, facing landwards to open our eyes to our responsibilities. -
Sorrow by Siv Grava -
Station to Station was ephemeral in a very literal sense - if you stood still, it would disappear before your very eyes! Artists Order55 (Seb Humphries) and KAB101 (Scott Coleman) approached SteamRanger Heritage Railway to paint a train carriage, as part of Goolwa's Just Add Water 2012/13, the first and only time it has been legitimately done, as far as we know, and made news on graffiti websites around the world. -
The Contemperate Ephemeral and Temporary Sculpture Trail, in situ from May to June 2014 and curated by Barbary O’Brien featured nine commissioned sculptures ranging from completely ephemeral to mild steel installed along the bike trail from Middleton Point to Basham’s Park. Held in conjunction with Just Add Water’s Saltwater SurfArtFest, it is estimated that 4 000 people took to the 1.5km trail. Image: Contemporate Artwork by David Kerr. Photo: Richard Hodges -
The Contemperate Ephemeral and Temporary Sculpture Trail, in situ from May to June 2014 and curated by Barbary O’Brien featured nine commissioned sculptures ranging from completely ephemeral to mild steel installed along the bike trail from Middleton Point to Basham’s Park. Held in conjunction with Just Add Water’s Saltwater SurfArtFest, it is estimated that 4 000 people took to the 1.5km trail. Image: Cindi SC and Martin Corbin -
The Contemperate Ephemeral and Temporary Sculpture Trail, in situ from May to June 2014 and curated by Barbary O’Brien featured nine commissioned sculptures ranging from completely ephemeral to mild steel installed along the bike trail from Middleton Point to Basham’s Park. Held in conjunction with Just Add Water’s Saltwater SurfArtFest, it is estimated that 4 000 people took to the 1.5km trail. Image: Mystic Spiral by Megan O'Hara. Photo: Richard Hodges -
The Contemperate Ephemeral and Temporary Sculpture Trail, in situ from May to June 2014 and curated by Barbary O’Brien featured nine commissioned sculptures ranging from completely ephemeral to mild steel installed along the bike trail from Middleton Point to Basham’s Park. Held in conjunction with Just Add Water’s Saltwater SurfArtFest, it is estimated that 4 000 people took to the 1.5km trail. Image: Global Skeletel by Greg Hatcher -
The Contemperate Ephemeral and Temporary Sculpture Trail, in situ from May to June 2014 and curated by Barbary O’Brien featured nine commissioned sculptures ranging from completely ephemeral to mild steel installed along the bike trail from Middleton Point to Basham’s Park. Held in conjunction with Just Add Water’s Saltwater SurfArtFest, it is estimated that 4 000 people took to the 1.5km trail. Image: Folks making themselves at home in Mike Tye's Living Room. Photo: Richard Hodges -
An architectural projection on the outside wall for the Launching the newly renovated Murray Bridge Town Hall, The Ribbon celebrated the connection between people and the river for Ripples, the Regional Centre of Culture in Murray Bridge 2010. https://illuminart.com.au/project/the-ribbon-architectural-projection-for-murray-bridge/ -
In 2010 Craig Walsh began his two year-long Digital Odyssey for Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art with a two month residency for the Regional Centre of Culture in Murray Bridge during which he spent time in Raukkan. -
Deb Sleeman 'Dresses' in the streets of Kingscote, Kangaroo Island for the Fifth South Australian Rural Women's Gathering 2000. -
Deb Sleeman 'Dresses' in the streets of Kingscote, Kangaroo Island for the Fifth South Australian Rural Women's Gathering 2000. -
The Long Lunch, with partners Natural Resource Management and Alexandrina Council, celebrated extensive revegetation work along Lake Alexandrina by volunteers with a richly evocative and immersive shared meal and included artworks made during a residency in Milang for Evette Sunset and Mike Tye to create a trail of 3 environmental sculpture installations which would last for one year, from natural materials indigenous to the Milang lake area, such as paperbark prunings, or aged recycled materials such as weathered fencing wire. -
VISIBLE a bold, new art residency held at night under lights on the stunning foreshore in Streaky Bay early in January 2018 was heralded a massive success. As well as those who intentionally came to the event, the workshops also captured the imagination of many wandering along the foreshore who were welcomed into a vibrant hub of engaging and innovative art activities. Artists included two popular local artists Lauren Karp and Leah King, and Adelaide based artists Henry Jock Walker, and Photographer and Light Painting artist Cam Edser.
Drive along the dramatic limestone cliffs of Elliston, near the eastern corner of the Great Australian Bight, and you will still see a few permanent artworks, a legacy of the Meeting of the Winds Sculpture on the Cliffs project, but you had to be there in those first few weeks to see the majority of the 26 short-lived works.
Initially part of the events commemorating the bicentennial of the 1802 meeting of Matthew Flinders’ and Nicholas Baudin’s ships along the South Australian coastline, it raised dark and sensitive issues about early settlement for the Elliston community, and became a means to reflect and redress them*.
Encouraged to spend time getting to know the people, the place and the past, artists worked with the drama and beauty of the natural landscape to create artworks which aroused so much public interest that the 2002 event was repeated biennially until 2008.
Ephemeral art remains a vital part of our arts landscape and whilst you won’t find many remnants of past events still in the real world, video and photographs often record their place in the regional arts narrative while memories, relationships and changed attitudes linger.
