Antipodean Bestiary

7 - 25 May 2007

Jacqui Stockdale
Julia Silvester
Heather Shimmen
Geoffrey Ricardo
James Morrison
Danie Mellor
Rew Hanks
Rona Green
Marian Drew
Annette Cook
Jazmina Cininas (Curator)

images

Essay

Bestiaries, collections of mediaeval animal lore, presented their specimens not as specimens of the natural world, but as exemplars of morality ... Like the fables, bestiaries tell us more about ourselves than about animals, but it is through animals that we learn. (Erica Fudge, Animal, 2002)

Australian native animals have inhabited the realm of invention in the Western imagination ever since the first platypus pelt was sent to England and declared a hoax. Marsupial koalas were metamorphosed into teddy bears and, as children, we watched bemused as Warner Brothers transformed our kangaroos and Tasmanian devils respectively into giant boxing mice and furious tornadoes of destruction that were difficult to reconcile with our own bush encounters or Healesville excursions. The very singularity of our native fauna reinforced Australia's remoteness from the ‘home' countries, both physically and culturally. Topsy-turvy curiosities such as egg laying mammals and tree dwelling kangaroos could only spring from the antipodes - the underbelly of the earth.

This uniqueness has also seen Australian animals readily, and conspicuously, serve as embodiments of national identity; on our coats of arms, our national airline, for our sporting teams and even our cultural funding bodies. White Australians were Skips first, then Aussies later. As we shed our cultural cringe and reconsider our place on the world stage, especially in light of the global increase in environmental awareness, our relationship with our most prominent ‘ambassadors' has also come under revision. Antipodean Bestiary brings together a broad range of artists, from printmakers and photographers to sculptors and painters, who explore various notions of the Australian native animal as a cultural construct, and renegotiate the myriad roles native fauna have played in shaping a national identity.

Julia Silvester, Heather Shimmen, Rew Hanks and Jacqui Stockdale draw from colonial imagery and histories, revisiting the earliest instances of native animals (bent to accommodate a European sensibility) in the role of forging an identity for a new, white Australia. Hanks and Danie Mellor explore ways in which such sensibilities and imperatives have overwhelmed the original cultures while James Morrison, Geoffrey Ricardo and Jazmina Cininas borrow from ‘old world' traditions of animals in fairytales to create hybrid mythologies - sometimes fanciful, sometimes dark - that reflect the multiple cultural influences in Australia today. Rona Green's hooligans and outlaws celebrate a convict lineage while Marian Drew and Annette Cook direct awareness to the precarious existence many native species experience in the face of human demands on the fragile wilderness.

The artists in Antipodean Bestiary draw attention not only to the ongoing relevance of native animals in our re-evaluations of nation and self, but also highlight our increasing understanding that our aspirations for the Australian landscape and its animal inhabitants need to shift from conquest to stewardship.

Jazmina Cininas
April 2007

Reviews

Aaron Martin
'Antipodean Bestiary'
ArtInfo

Curator Profile

Jazmina Cininas is a Melbourne based artist, curator and freelance arts writer. She completed her Masters in Fine Art, Printmaking in 2002 at RMIT, where she is currently a lecturer in Printmaking, as well as a PhD candidate. Her ongoing practice based project, The Girlie Werewolf Project, has been exhibited in Melbourne, Gippsland, Fremantle, Lithuania and Canberra, and its most recent incarnation will be shown at Port Jackson Press Print Room in October this year. Her work is included in many state and regional collections, including the Australian National Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Victorian Arts Centre and the Alice Springs Art Foundation.

Jazmina initiated the Summer Studios @ 66 residency programme for RMIT Visual Arts and Project Space and curated its first two exhibitions Pelt and Ex Libris. Other curatorial projects include Antipodean Bestiary and The Enchanted Forest: New Gothic Storytellers, scheduled to open at Geelong Gallery in 2008.

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