Dunmoochin

I returned to Australia late August and took up a one year residency in Dunmoochin, one of only four or so artist communities of its kind in this country. I'm also fortunate to be living and working in Clifton Pugh's former studio. His presence is still very much evident. If not in artefacts one finds around the building or the remnants years of painting on the floors, many of my dreams of late feature this three times Archibald prize winning painter.

Am settling into Dunmoochin nicely. Slowing down considerably...

The days here are incredible. Every minute of every day one notices distinct change in colour here. Even the ground cover changes, and so it should - it's windy at times and leaves will fall! But with a little rain, and there's been that in recent days, in places there grows a moss-like creeping plant. Incredible stuff.

I'm told within a couple kilometre radius, Dunmoochin hosts some of the rarest, and tiniest orchards to be found any where. Some, perhaps only two or three plants left in the pool!

Now that I'm here, with two years of travelling unpacked and many more memories to adsorb, I want for nothing more than to become more attuned with Dunmoochin and its legacy. In short, I don't particularly want to go any where! I'm not only travel weary, I've got a lot of work I need to do, and to do that work at a reasonable pace. I also want to re-kindle my cooking skills and clean up the gardens here. The idea of packing yet another bag and setting off, which I must in less than a couple of weeks, seems frightfully challenging at this time.

September stills of Dunmoochin.

Kenyah elder, Sarawak

Reflections from an installation at ESC im Labor, Graz, Austria

CPU, 4 – 25 October 2008

This is a kind of post-mortem of a response to the CPU program I was invited to participate in during which time the installation NOTHINGKNOWN was created.

I have always been impressed and inspired by the work of the people at ESC im Labor and mur.at. We have been close allies ever since we first met in 1999. We are cut from very similar cloth and have woven similar initiatives in entirely different parts of the world. We come together not only as colleagues, but as friends... and as the years go by, we become more and more like family.

It is in this spirit of nurturing that I have the following reflections to share.

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