Facilitated by Beth Sometimes with speakers Elliat Rich and James Young of Elbow Workshop, Mel Robson, and Arrernte apmereke artweye Therese Ryder, Helena Buzzacott and Lorrayne Gorey.
On the 3rd of May WTS will be taking part in the Climate Strike.
We strongly encourage all other arts organisations and independent artists across the country to join us in solidarity. Add your name to the document here and strike this coming Friday 3rd May.
We, the undersigned artists and arts workers, offer our support and stand together with striking students to call for immediate political action to address climate change and add our voices to the call for climate justice.
On May 3, 2019, artists across Australia strike in solidarity with the global climate strike led by young people across over 100 countries. We recognise that this third major climate strike must be bolstered by a general strike of all members of our global communities, and so we come together as an artists’ and arts workers’ contingent (although we are also teachers, students, parents, carers, hospitality workers, among many other things).
We recognise that the precarity, inequality, alienation and co-option of art and artists by neoliberal capitalism are interconnected with the political forces that have driven us to this urgent moment of worsening climate impacts. We are subjected to the same dehumanising systems and corrupt leadership that have prioritised corporate greed over public good. Artists join the call for an urgent realignment of policy and action to create a safe, healthy and just future for all.
We recognise the role of both artists and young people in creating bold new imaginaries - of imagining new futures into existence. We come together at the Student Strike 4 Climate to acknowledge that climate damage is affecting all of us right now; and we support the call for a general strike that reflects the urgency and vastness of the climate crisis.
We echo students' demands in the lead up to the 2019 climate election:
- All parties commit to stop digging, burning and exporting coal.
- 100% transition to solar and wind energy by 2030 at the latest.
- Stop the Adani coal mine.
We also demand an end to and refuse to partake in artwashing - the unethical instrumentalisation of the arts by companies that support the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.
Installation by local artists as part of the Alice Live program (not a WTS project)
Have you ever caught a glimpse, from the corner of your eye of something intriguing? Have you heard a message in a rumble, in a murmur, in the dull sound of an ache?
Just after sunset three troopies appear along Todd Mall, wayfarers all, following a well-worn path through Mparntwe.
This is familiar route for these light beings. Maybe you have crossed their path before, maybe you will be halted in your tracks by their blazing light and cocooned darkness. Where are you now?
Blink and you will dis/miss them, for to be with them in an ongoing becoming is to sense this specific sighting (site) with all our capacities.
Troopies of Light
Accompanying the end of a long, long, extremely hot and dry summer (Uterne Uyelpuyerreme)
Lines of carriage
Take us far
Moving along dry grass, dry stones
Seeking water
Under the moon
The wind blows
Three slow moving women
Hold the sky
As it cuts down
Branches change, part and die
The wind is blowing
Hot and dull
Shadows are moving
Across phases of the moon
Shadows of eucalyptus and date palm
Scorched earth
Ignite
Descend and move on
Wendy Cowan, 2019
Wendy Cowan and Mark Goonan have worked on site specific events and performances in many places, including Dublin, Derry, Wolverhampton and Darwin. These happenings were created alongside a variety of arts organisations such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Theatre of Fire, Welfare State International, Wet Paint Arts, to name a few. Wendy and Mark were the founding members of a street theatre company, which toured festivals across Ireland.
Exhibiting artist, Beth Sometimes, speaks to Jack Talbot and WTS studio artist, Jonny Rowden, on 8CCC Community Radio about her exhibition HEAT ISLAND - an imagining of the Coles Carpark Alice Springs.
Exhibition opens this Friday 12th April, 6pm. Exhibition continues until Saturday 27th April 2019.