The Place Between (2018)
Blue Ontology (a photo of the sea taken twice a day between Australia and China). Found timber box/digitally printed 3 mm acrylic/paper.Orlando Floats. 4K-video/colour/infinite loop.
Atrophy 3 (rust details from ANL Wahroonga). Cross-Stitch, 13.5 x 11cm.
Dark Snow (13 days of perambulation on ANL Wahroonga). Digital print on Ilford gold/60 x 48 cm.
Dark Snow (13 days of perambulation on ANL Wahroonga). Digital print on Ilford gold/84 x 56 cm.Found bunker fuel emission/ found timber box/recycled kimono fabric/crochet cotton gloves .
Researchers: Dr Clare McCracken
AEGIS UN Sustainable Development Goals 11, 14, & 13
“...the boat is a floating piece of space, a place
without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed
in on itself and at the same time is given over to
the infinity of the sea…”. (Foucault 1967)
On the 21st of July 2018, Clare McCracken boarded the ANL Wahroonga container ship and steamed from Australia to China – dwelling in motion for 13 days. The route roughly mirrored that of her great-great-grandmother who travelled from Australia to Asia in 1874, a family narrative that has been passed down between generations in the form of a well-thumbed diary written during her adventure.
The Place Between artworks are a meditation upon the social, environmental and political implications of international trade, the mobility of women and the place between Australia and the rest of the world in the 19th and 21st century. It is part of a series of projects that explore the impact of mobility systems (cars, planes, mobile texhnology and ships) on Australia; and the way in which they have, and continue to, shape our connection to environments, our sense of time and social relationships. It combined performance, photography, story telling and film to create a mixed media series of works which wound together the artists contemporary expedition on the ship with that of her great-great-grandmother. In doing so it created a poetic, generational image of the place we generally fly over – the place much of contemporary Australia ignores – between Australia and the rest of the world.
Lead artist and researcher: Clare McCracken
Performance documentation by Andrew Ferris,
Exhibited at the Mission to Seafarers, Melbourne (2018) and WORD OF MOUTH, Venice (2019) a Venice Biennale pop-up curated by Peter Hill. Works from The Place Between were shortlisted for the Mission to Seafarers Maritime Art Prize (2020), the Darebin Art Prize for Excellence in Contemporary Visual Art (2019) and the Nillumbik Art Prize (2019). An artist book documenting Clare’s journey is housed in the State Library of Victoria’s rare books collection along side her great-great-grandmothers diary.
Passing Manus Island. 4K-video/colour/infinite loop.