Biennale of Sydney

Scientists

Dr. Alexander Bond
Born 1983 in Halifax, Canada
Lives and works in Milton Keynes, Tring, and London, United Kingdom; and Hobart, Australia

Dr. Ian Hutton
Born 1950 in Sydney, Australia
Lives and works on Lord Howe Island, Australia

Dr. Jennifer Lavers
Born 1979 in Edmonton, Canada
Lives and works in Hobart, Australia

Lucienne Rickard
Detached Cultural Organisation artist in residence for Adrift Lab, Lord Howe Island, 2014

Detached Cultural Organisation
Michael Bugelli, Penny Clive AO, Dr. Matthew Lamb, Sergei Nester, Mark Young, Dean Ware and studio

Adrift Lab is a group of researchers studying all things adrift in the ocean, including plastic, chemicals, and wildlife. Adrift Lab analyses data gathered at sea and on beaches to identify long-term trends and quantify the impact of marine plastic pollution. Their projects range from monitoring sentinel species, to developing tools to quantify sub-lethal effects following ingestion by wildlife. They use the information generated from their research outputs to engage the broader community and inform policy-making, with an aim to drive positive change for the ecology of our world’s oceans. Adrift Lab includes diverse graduate students and post-docs from all over the globe, who offer specialist skills in ecotoxicology, statistical analysis, and marine ecology.

Each year in April scientists from Adrift Lab travel to Lord Howe Island where they have been researching the ongoing impacts of plastic pollution on the shearwater bird population. Rubbish is carried to Lord Howe Island by the shearwater birds who mistake the plastic for prey in the ocean. Ingestion of plastics by the birds leads to dehydration, starvation and exposure to toxic chemicals. Dr. Jennifer Lavers explains “As a scientist and a science communicator, I feel it is my responsibility to tell the story of these places and give a voice to the voiceless,” as each year, the proportion of shearwater birds recorded with plastic in their stomachs continues to rise. An arrangement of reclaimed wooden tables reference Adrift Lab's kitchen table on Lord Howe Island and display a number of specimens, thousands of images, hours of video, and years of scientific research by the scientists.

Detached Cultural Organisation responds to the challenges, complexity, and resonance of Australian and international contemporary art and society.  Established in 2008, Detached continues to be independent, elusive, and perpetually renewing.

(Scroll down to learn more about Lucienne Rickard)

Lucienne Rickard is a Hobart-based artist who was the Detached Cultural Organisation artist in residence for Adrift Lab at Lord Howe Island in 2014.

Extinction Studies by Lucienne Rickard encompasses a durational drawing performance and its material traces. The work is a new iteration of a year-long project where Rickard undertakes a daily reckoning: drawing, then erasing a recently extinct species sourced from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the authoritative list of extinct and threatened species used by scientists globally. For this new performance of the gesture, Rickard uses the same paper that was daily drawn upon and erased, and which bears the traces, memories and indentations of this accumulative engagement with loss. Extinction Studies merges art and science, a ‘study’ being both a technical art term for a drawing or sketch done in preparation, and more generally understood as the practice of devoting time and attention to understanding a topic, in this case the process of species extinction and urgent concerns for the future of biodiversity and life in the natural world.

“Plastic-free Biennale is a strange beast! We have been commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney to facilitate its desire ’to go plastic-free’. As anyone living in the world in 2020 would recognise, this is nigh-on-impossible to achieve. So, how can we as artists work in this space where good intentions butt up against our inevitable failure?"

"What would a genuinely plastic-free Biennale look like?”

For this wide-ranging socially engaged project, Lucas Ihlein and Kim Williams began with the Biennale of Sydney itself, engaging staff in discussions and field trips while also looking at the organisation’s environmental management more broadly. On Cockatoo Island, the artists have been working with one of the main food and beverage caterers, Societé Overboard. In their home of Wollongong, they’ve engaged local kids and Wadi Wadi Elder Aunty Barbara Nicholson to create a new plastic-themed song “Plastic in the House”. For this present iteration, the artists have created a space for gathering and discussion, centred around the old-fashioned activity of washing up, as both metaphor and action for taking responsibility, allowing people to bring re-usable containers rather than buying disposable items.

Video: Lucas Ihlein & Kim Williams, Plastic in the House, 2020, single-channel digital video, colour, sound, 3:39 mins. Courtesy the artists. Songwriting: Kim Williams; Vocals: Lucas Ihlein; Keyboard: India Sweeney; Backing vocals: The Plastic Highlighters (Hazel Henchion, Harper Masters, Albie Muller, Elkie Peacock); Sound engineer: Ben Davies; Video production: Wayward Films