Glossopteris: Black beyond coal

House Conspiracy, as a part of the Brisbane and Elsewhere Art UnTriennial, presents 'Glossopteris: Black Beyond Coal'.

The curatorial theme of this group exhibition, draws reference to Glossopteris, a genus of extinct seed fern whose fossils are among the greatest contributors to Permian coal deposits in Australia and India. These same fossils were among the primary clues that lead geolists to theorise continental drift and shape the Gondawana model, which connects the ancient lands of  Australia and India. 

Indian artist in residence, Raju Sutar, dedicated his time at House Conspiracy to developing 'Black Beyond Coal', a series of works that oppose his countryman Adani's Carmichael coal mine. In standing in solidarity with the Wangan and Jagalingou People, the traditional owners of the land, at this critical time, Sutar's series became a catalyst for the Glossopteris theme and its inter-disciplinary curatorial approach, which sees the exhibition extend into two offsite events.

‘Glossopteris: Black Beyond Coal'  featured works by Indian artists Raju Sutar, Vaishali Oak, Thaj Backer, and Aboriginal artist Benjamin Creek exhibited alongside performances by local musicians Seamus Kirkpatrick and Greg Reason, plus a collaborative performance by sound artist Leah Barclay and 'Thus Spoke the Plant' author/scientist Monica Gagliano, and a screening of Waiting for Postcards, a short film by Danny McShane that documents the making of Omegachild's debut EP as he embarks on a musical journey throughout India.  

At its conclusion, a symbolic 'Boundary Street Conspiracy Crossing' walk saw the exhibition transitioned across the street into an up late Club Conspiracy concert event. 

The event extended over the following day, with Monica Gagliano conducting an offsite reading and Q&A at The Book Merchant Jenkins.

SHOWCASE DOCUMENTATION

Click through to view event and artwork documentation

Thaj Backer

I was born in Calicut; a village surrounded by hills and ponds in North Kerala. When I was 3 years old I moved to Malappuram, a fishing village near the sea. I had started drawing from my childhood, but I come from a family who doesn't have an art background, so it was hard for me to enter into art, but I've survived!

I am a self taught artist. Although I didn’t receive any academic training, I now have experience working with a variety of different mediums; such as painting, Installation, video and performance. I have also been associated with a Malayalam children's theatre for the past 7 years.

For me art practice is a way of life, not a job, so I will go deep rooted to my soil and soul always. I draw upon my roots, as well as the conflicts and complexities of Indian life, making art that reflects our past, present, and potential futures - sometimes questioning myself, society, or even religion and the state; for me, that's how art becomes valuable, something worth believing in.

Vaishali Oak

Vaishali Oak, born and brought up in Pune is an established contemporary artists and got her degree of G.D. Art (Drawing and Painting) in the year 1991and masters (Painting) in 1994, She has been working with fabric as her primary medium of expression since 1997 and has been experimenting the possibilities of working with this material. Her work is inspired by a simple village quilt called ‘Godhadi’ in her native region.

In the year 2002, Vaishali received a two-year scholarship from the Government of India to explore the fabric, visual effects and ethos of godhadis and transpose their essence in a contemporary art form, and the grant encouraged her to create abstract works, drawn from these traditional tribal quilts.

Disturbed by the horrific communal clash in Godhra, in Gujarat, in 2002, that fanned into ghastly riots, Vaishali spontaneously created a hard-hitting work titled ‘Flow of Death’ (After Godhra) that received a National Academy Award (2002): it is a layered quilt with a bright red fabric as the uppermost surface, slight bulge in the heart of the composition like a pregnant belly with a bullet hole in it (that she made by burning the spot with an incense stick), and long streaks of red dripping below this womb, symbolizing the loss of life and the loss of hope. She is also having a special mention in the catalogue of the show celebrating 50 years of Lalit Kala Akademi called ‘Swarnarekha’.

Vaishali participated in several exhibitions held in India and abroad, she is also involved in conducting workshops for the welfare of Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum, Pune.

She was a part of 9th ‘From Lausanne to Beijing’ International Fiber Art Biennale Exhibition and Exchange. Guan Shan Yue Art Museum, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, (China) P.R., her work was awarded as ‘Outstanding artwork’ in this Biennale. Her works and her installation was a part of an official collateral for Kochi-Muziris Biennale (INDIA) 2016 from 12th December 2016 to 29th March 2017. Participating in 12th International Contemporary Textile biennial, Scythia, Ukraine 2018. She was apart of 10 th ‘From Lausanne to Beijing’ International Fiber Art Biennale Exhibition and Exchange. Which was held at The Academy of Arts & Design Tsinghua University, Beijing.

Raju Sutar

Raju is an established contemporary artist from Pune, India, who is currently engaged in painting large size canvasses, fine art contemporary photography, and video installations. He was recently both curator and exhibiting artist in Thought is Also a Matter, a group show that was part of the 2019 Kochi-Muziris Biennale collateral program. Raju has exhibited in the 2015 Florence Biennale, and was invited to visit Documenta 13 and Berlin Biennale in 2012 as a part of South Asian Delegation. He has worked on various large scale corporate art projects and is currently working as a consultant for P. N. Gadgil and Sons, helping to develop a project, which includes the building of an Art Museum and Pune's first ever International art Foundation, with a focus on benefiting the arts community and young artists.

Omegachild

Omegachild is the solo project of local West End-based electronic producer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Daniel Newstead.

His work critically reflects today’s virtual hyper-connectivity and ‘society of the spectacle’. The Omegachild ‘one-man machine’ live show is a synesthetic music experience that sees audio- activated projections and lighting respond to Newstead as he simultaneously plays live synths and drums at the same time as singing. In challenging the limits of human performance in such a way, he explores technology as an extension of the human body and psyche, probing both its potentials and dangers.

This boundary pushing approach earned Newstead The QUBE effect ‘Best New Talent’ award in 2016, and in 2019 the mesmerising video for his recent single Fifth Dimension (Directed by Manny Cole) was nominated as a finalist in Queensland Music Awards. Set your controls for the heart of an electronic sun and enter Omegachild

Leah Barclay & Monica Gagliano 

Monica Gagliano is a research associate professor in evolutionary ecology and former fellow of the Australian Research Council. She is currently based at the University of Sydney as a Research Affiliate at the Sydney Environment Institute and a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, where she is opening the doors of the brand-new BI Lab-Biological Intelligence Lab. Though she began her career by studying animal behaviour, she quickly turned her attention to plant behaviour and cognition. In recent years, she has blazed the trail for a brand new field called plant bioacoustics, showing that plants do make sounds; and by demonstrating experimentally that learning is not the exclusive province of animals. Gagliano has re-ignited the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical and legal standing. Her studies have led her to author numerous groundbreaking scientific articles and to co-edit The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World (Lexington Books, 2015), The Language of Plants: Science, Philosophy and Literature (Minnesota University Press, 2017) and Memory and Learning in Plants (Springer, 2018). Her research transcends the view of plants as the objects of scientific materialism and encourages us to rethink plants as people-beings with subjectivity, consciousness, and volition, and hence having the capacity for their own perspectives and voices. In her latest book, Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants (North Atlantic Books, 2018), which she calls a "phyto-biography", she describes her experiments that opened the space to begin to understand how to make contact with this other-than-human intelligence.

Seamus Kirkpatrick, a.k.a. Wake the Mountain (Sing the Mountain Back to Sleep)

Wake the Mountain (Sing the Mountain Back to Sleep) is Seamus Kirkpatrick's project of improvised durational energy music. Seamus has been making music for 36 years and teaching for 28. He has an AmusA (Clarinet), a Bachelor of Music (Sonology) and is completing a Masters of Music Studies (Vocal Pedagogy). He performs as a vocalist and on bass guitar, guitar, clarinet, saxophone, flute, and keyboard. As well as involvement in writing and recording over 20 physical and online releases, he has written for theatre, television, and independent film. For 22 years he was the co-director of Independent Music and the Independent Music Academy. Festival performances have included The Woodford Folk Festival (Artist in Residence 2016-17), The National and Port Fairy Folk Festivals, Jungle Love, The Queensland Poetry Festival, The Adelaide and Brisbane Fringe Festivals, Livid, The Big Day Out, Cementa Arts Festival, and various venues including QPAC, The Sydney Opera House, and The Arts Centre Melbourne. Seamus was a member of beloved Brisbane funk/punk band Taxi, as well as folk revival group Cole, Kirkpatrick and Van Dijk, acid-folk group One Straw, jazz trio The Charlie Moreland Trio, and was a founding member of The Shenzo Electric Stunt Orchestra. Recently, Seamus has performed with Nonsemble, Luke Jaaniste’s HHAARRPP.collective, Nick Watson And The Bawdy Dicks, and is a regular collaborator with writer, artist and film maker Jake Connor Moss. He has guested with The Resin Dogs, The Doch Gypsy Orchestra, and The Toothfaries.

Greg Reason 

Greg Reason is a musician, producer, photographer and journalist. He explores new musical spaces with a variety of projects including  Ektoise , Tetra, Gorau Glas, Versim, and Departures as well as recent recordings under his own name. He has participated in the creation of over eighty releases, including forty-seven as producer. He produced the soundtrack for the short film Real Love (Cannes Festival, 2013) and his compositions have been remixed by such luminaries as Bola, The Haxan Cloak, Mark Fell (SND), Noah Landis (Neurosis), Danny Hyde (Coil), The Black Dog, and Chris Douglas. As a journalist, his work has been published in Berlin Logs, Deluxe Edition, Tsunami Magazine, and Forte.

Benjamin Creek

Raju Sutar in conversation with Jake Sun

CREDITS:

Click on Names for Profiles

Artist in Residence: Raju Sutar

Featured Artist: Thaj Backer

Featured Artist: Vaishali Oak

Featured Artist: Omegachild

Featured Artist: Monica Gagliano

Featured Artist: Leah Barclay

Featured Artist: Seamus Kirkpatrick

Featured Artist: Greg Reason

Showcase Writer: Jake Sun

Creative Director in Residence: Jake Sun

Documentation Photography: Joseph Lynch