Conversations with the Saltmarsh

Meg is a Tasmanian artist, educator and arts advocate with 25 years experience nationally and internationally. She is Samstag Scholar, an alumnus of the San Francisco Art Institute, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Space Program, New York. She has a studio-based Doctorate from the School of Creative Arts, University of Tasmania. Her artwork and research interests have evolved through cross-cultural experience including residencies in New York, Taipei, Thailand, Tokyo, South and Korea. Meg thinks through, and with, the visual medias of painting and drawing to engage with subjects from a different perspective.

Andy Vagg, an artist, writer, and performer, delves into contemporary existence, examining its qualities and limitations. He scrutinizes the impact of our choices on social evolution and employs social contexts as platforms for transformative ideas, fostering positive societal shifts. Through his performances, Andy explores religion's role in today's secular world and its aid in navigating environmental and psychosocial changes triggered by industrialization, globalism, and consumerism. Coastal zones captivate him, serving as both ecological interfaces and symbolic junctions of colonial history. Andy's works grace public and private spaces throughout Australia, while his collaborations span educational and community settings, from schools to care facilities.

Bec Stevens, an artist captivated by flora, humanity, and locations, boasts training in Fine Arts, Environmental Design, and Horticulture. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, her core methods encompass drawing, listening, collaboration, and context-sensitive responses. She harnesses creative practice's potential to solve intricate issues ingeniously. Employing emergent strategies, she intertwines insights into the societal and geographical aspects of our surroundings. Based in nipaluna, lutruwita, she's been active in the creative realm for over two decades, contributing to communities, galleries, museums, and artist-run initiatives. She's currently engaged in a year-long Royal Hobart Hospital residency, crafting mobile gardens from repurposed hospital trolleys for patient visits.

Cassie Sullivan, a pallawah woman, cultivates a responsive, intimate, and experimental contemporary art practice that spans moving image, photography, writing, sound, installation, and printmaking. Her process-driven approach centers on sensory engagement with Country. Writing serves as a tool within her creative and cultural exploration, helping her understand life's flow and complexities. Sullivan delves into materiality to amplify intricate identities, with a focus on intergenerational experiences and trauma stored in bodily memory. She investigates the preservation and loss of indigenous knowledge in her identity and body. Sullivan's work has graced Tasmanian exhibitions, and she's a finalist for the Women’s Art Prize and Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize. Holding degrees from the University of Tasmania and RMIT University, she's established herself as a versatile artist.

Julia Drouhin amplifies imperceptible soundstreams to uncover social tensions through radio, installation, and collaborative performances. She's known for leaping on a mini trampoline with broken plates or licking rocks by the beach. Part of the Instrument Builder Project (IBP5) for Mona Foma 2021, she explored sound alongside the Australia Art Orchestra and studied water-based instruments for autistic children in Paris. Her Sisters Akousmatica project with Phillipa Stafford redefines radio arts, supporting marginalized groups. Julia holds a Ph.D. from Paris 8 France, focusing on broadcast impact in public space, and now engages with artists with disabilities and local youth in lutruwita/Tasmania, Australia.

Ben, born in Lutruwita/Tasmania, completed a Bachelor of Economics in 1972 before venturing into resin and fibreglass surfboard crafting. Transitioning to ceramics at The School of Art in Hobart by 1981, he lectured at the Tasmanian School of Art and played a pivotal role in the development of Southern Ice porcelain. Coordinating ceramics at TAFE Hobart from 2001 to 2012, he pursued a Master's in Art, Design, and Environment at UTAS in 2004, focusing on local materials. Founder of Ridgeline Pottery in 1981, his woodfiring and place-oriented craft gained recognition in leading Australian restaurants. Ben won the inaugural Vitrify Alcorso Ceramic Award in 2011.

Simon, a community-engaged practitioner for nearly four decades, has worked extensively with diverse global communities. He established an immersive residency project overlooking Pipe Clay Lagoon in Tasmania with Victoria Ryle after relocating there in 2016. In 2019, he completed a reflective practice PhD, focusing on fostering holistic creative practices. His approach encompasses personal endeavors, digital drawing, and book-making, as well as participatory projects displayed at renowned venues like Tate Modern and Carnegie Hall in 2018. Engaged in social practice, he leads the Tasmanian ArTELIER initiative and serves as Chair of Regional Arts Australia pro bono. Simon's writing an interactive drawing book on reflective practice and currently holds the position of adjunct Senior Researcher at UTAS. His recent Hobart exhibit, "You weigh more when you carry a book," featured videos, books, and prints.

Founder of Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership, Ireland (1997) and Kids’ Own Publishing, Australia, 2003, has pioneered publishing books by children through artist-led community partnerships, presenting on this practice worldwide. She is currently undertaking a PhD at UTAS on the culturally transformative power of publishing with children drawing on 30 years experience as a teacher, facilitator, advisory teacher and teaching artist. Victoria is co-director of all that we are, a space for residencies and gatherings that connect communities through creativity in Tasmania. Victoria is Australia’s inaugural representative Catalyst for the new International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC) Collaborative alongside 12 other international artists.

Victoria is also co-director of all that we are, a residency space in southern Tasmania for connecting communities through creativity.

www.kidsownpublishing.com

www.kidsown.ie

Clifton Saltmarsh reverberates with a tangible energy that I particularly feel when I sit and paint here en Plein air. As I locate myself within the marsh and turn my attention to the slow process of recording my sensations of place in paint, things are revealed. I notice more; particular vegetation, rocks, the changing light - but also sense a living energy pulsating - echoing the play of the tide as it slowly ebbs and flows - my mind wanders to thoughts of First Nation people who regularly gathered here to eat and socialise - it’s a special place that I long to return to again for further study.

As an artist, I am fascinated by the way objects can capture our attention and remain in the imagination as a memory of a place and time. My work is conceptual. I am hoping to make tangible thoughts or feelings through my work. In the way of the bricoleur, I work with found material and make objects that are reminiscent of a place. I document the practice of collecting and explore new ways to expand my practice.

In 2022 my imagination was captured by a juvenile Bar-Tailed Godwit known by its tag 234684. It broke the record for flying over 13,000km non-stop –– without resting or feeding from Alaska to the East Coast of Tasmania. The Godwit’s migration follows a flight way to Alaska, stopping near the Yellow sea in China, then back to Australia and New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean.

It would be remiss not to mention the threat to migratory birds of human activity along the shores of the intertidal lagoons on the East Asian-Australasian flyway. China has responded quickly to this threat and there are now 5 new UNESCO world heritage sites and bird sanctuaries along the yellow sea. The challenge and threats for these migratory birds speaks to their fragility, vulnerability and incredible endurance.

On my last visit to ATWA in Clifton Beach, Tasmania I arrived with some clay tools, paints, a journal and a camera. I had a contact at Bird Life Tasmania who would help me spot a Godwit. I began my creative process with walking, learning the shoreline, and finding the Godwit. I wanted to bear witness to the existence of the Godwit in the lagoons and find something about this place that would stay in the imagination.

In the mornings, I wrote while watching the lagoon through the large windows of the making room. I watched the tides and began to understand the landscape and its rhythm. At high tide I would find the birds on the shoreline. At low tide, when the oyster farm tractors moved out into the lagoon it was time to walk around the headland and back before I was cut off by the incoming tide. The farm workers and I would wave hello as we gathered from the lagoon.

I gathered blue marine clay from under the sand and formed it into vessels containing remnants of shells and marine life. The vessels held a bricolage of shells and skeletons gathered from the shoreline. Evidence of the birds' place in the lagoons.

While walking the lagoons at low tide I could see the Godwits feeding in the mudflats. At high tide the bird would rest on the shoreline. Oyster catchers appear to be their guardians' –– calling warnings as I walked along the beach.

https://greatalpinegallery.org.au/artist-profile-heather-leatham/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-leatham-464391183/

https://www.instagram.com/heather_leatham/?hl=en

Lucille Martin is an Australian Contemporary Artist, Educator and Environmentalist living and working on Wadjuk Country – Perth, Western Australia, who fosters a dialogue within her themes, practice, and methodology to ignite awareness and drive meaningful action regarding the significance of current anthropogenic and climate focused events throughout the world.

Her artwork touches on the impact of human activity in respect to the planet’s climate and ecosystems, transgressing land, and planetary boundaries, with an innate passion for experimentation with materials, tools and curatorial engagement across a multi-disciplinary practice of documentary photography, iPhoneography, textiles, lithographic transfer and hand making.

Lucille’s work in Salt Marsh and Intertidal zones began in 2000 while resident in Northern NSW where she was environmentally and politically active in Climate agenda. She has since documented Marsh and intertidal zones in Tasmania https://lucillemartin.com/all-that-we-are-2022/ , North / South West Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, Northern NSW and recently Venice, Italy, Calanque, Marseille and Camargue, France. She has been working with curator Maya Martin-Westheimer https://www.floorplanstudio.net/rockpoolresidency

Lucille’s work is widely exhibited in solo & curatorial programs, residencies in Australia and Internationally. Her work is held in public and private collections including, Australian Parliament House, Canberra and AGWA. She is recipient of Australian Council awards including International Tokyo studio, SOFA Art Fair-New York, Canon Artlab-Tokyo, DLGSC -Visual Arts grants and  a Career fellowship and recently in 2023 Art Laguna Prize at The Arsenal Noord, Venice, Italy for Right Fire Photographic exhibition 2022 https://lucillemartin.com/right-fire/  Lucille holds MA, UNSW, Sydney, Dip/Cert Graphic Design, Perth, Production Design, AFTRS, Sydney. Her current project in 2024 PICA-La Friche Award, sponsored by French Embassy, Australia exploring Adoption, Slavery and ecological crisis in 1700’s.

Lucille is a committee member of CLIMARTE, Australia, NOP for Arts professionals, activists and academics, working on Climate Emergency and Civil Rights themes through the power of socially engaged Arts practice to inspire and raise awareness about causes and solutions for Climate Emergency while elevating the role of creative workers as powerful change makers in society.

Kuenlin's creative endeavors span a diverse array of mediums, including installations, sculptures, soundscapes, printmaking, and video. His creative emphasis is primarily centered on the perceptive relationship between sound and the environment. Through immersive explorations of historical sites and the comprehensive documentation encompassing images, sound, and other diverse mediums, he navigates new pathways of understanding that emerge between his own being and the environment. His creative process often revolves around field investigations, serving as a method of material collection that he harmoniously integrates into a multitude of creative forms. Through these various modes of expression, he effectively communicates his observations.

www.tsaikuenlin.com

Seattle-based artist, scholar, educator, and designer, Naomi Kasumi, was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. Kasumi is currently both Professor of Design, and Director of the Design Program. She started Her career as an assistant professor in 2003 she established the Digital Design Program in the Department of Fine Arts at Seattle University. The program is now named the Design Program and is situated in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design. Kasumi became a full Professor in 2019.

Since Japan’s Tsunami disaster and her own near-death experience in 2011, she has been interested in working on a csocially engaged art projects involving local community members, villages, schools, etc, collaboratively working with community on a common goal and celebrate the process of making art.

She is globally active installation artist, and her solo and group exhibitions are broad in scope. They include galleries and educational institutions nationally and internationally.