francais davin, wendy mcgrath, christine james, susanne mclean, sally spencer
Metaphor, science and art blurred like a river's interflowing currents in the works forming the exhibition, 'Bathing with Mary'. Five artists in residence, with three mentors, researched and interpreted water values in Noosa, Cooloola and Hervey Bay, the shires collectively embracing the Mary River catchment system.
Anecdotally, the 'Bathing with Mary' project impacted appreciably upon local cultural and environment-linked communities and by extension, general residents. The Commonwealth Regional Arts Fund supported a classic 'partnership' proposition comprising three public galleries, the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee and Gympie Landcare.
How would viewers have been affected by the symbolic arguments for environmental justice embodied in 'Bathing with Mary'? I posed this question at a distance, from the climate of Sydney's Biennale and its much discussed theme, 'On reason and emotion'. Distilled, this was a reassessment of the body-mind split taken up by curator Isabel Carlos through her philosophical alignment with the seventeenth century philosopher, Baruch Spinoza and the contemporary neurologist Antonio Damasio. Spinoza asserted that once we have a clear and distinct idea of an emotion, it ceases to be an emotion. Damasio further postulates that emotions are biologically indispensable to decision-making.
Were the works about fragile rainfall levels (Francois Davin), degraded riparian corridors (Christine James), remnant forest waterways (Wendy McGrath), erosion, silt and salt (Susanne Mclean) and the endangered Mary River Turtle (Sally Spencer) affective enough to bypass the 'compassion fatigue' attending the competing tragedies we face daily? On balance they do, with the simple tools of technical dexterity (reason) and sensitive interpretation of beauty and threat (emotion).
Francois Davin, based near Noosa and Christine James from Canberra were the project's mentor artists (Fiona Foley was a non-exhibiting mentor also) and