Landscape is a vital theme through which artists have tackled issues of representation, nation & identity in both Australia & the United Kingdom. Figuring Landscapes is a remarkable collection of moving image works that grew from the background of the political & cultural history that links the two countries, & the close relationship that continues between them. Presented internationally as a series of 5 screening programmes, the works in this season take on questions addressing ecological survival, post-industrialisation, gender, the touristic gaze, & uniquely in Australia, the social, political & cultural status of Indigenous people in a post-colonial modern society.

Figuring Landscapes was devised & curated by Catherine Elwes & Steven Ball.

Australian Curators: Pat Hoffie & Danni Zuvela. It is financially supported by the Arts Council of England, University of the Arts, London & Griffith University, Brisbane.

Official Website:
http://www.studycollection.co.uk/figuringlandscapes/index.html

7:00 - FIGURING LANDSCAPES: ENGAGEMENT
(1975-2007) 59 mins

The political, cultural & representational engagement with place & being on the land are simultaneously unpacked, celebrated & imaginatively reinvigorated in works by such filmmakers & artists as David Perry, Dominic Redfern & Eugenia Lim. This program explores sites of identity & anonymity that are scattered with markers of ownership & the history of humanity’s engagement with the environment.

8:10 - FIGURING LANDSCAPES: ENCOUNTER
(1983-2008) 67 mins

Landscape is experienced as a spatial encounter with specific places, as we journey across distance & memory, custom & industry, & on land, on water & through the air. Featuring key works by such filmmakers & visual artists as Andrew Kötting, Warwick Thornton, Catherine Elwes, William Raban, Tony Hill & Lyndal Jones.

9:30 - FIGURING LANDSCAPES: SURROUNDINGS
(2002-2008) 66 mins

The ambience of place resonates from the broad scope of the horizon to the intimacy of the closely observed. “Out there” the figure in the landscape is a rare sight, its image constructed from memory, materials to hand or construed from the abstract sensation of movement. Featuring work by Sofia Dahlgren, Steven Ball, Jo Millett & John Conomos.

7:00 - FIGURING LANDSCAPES: ENACTMENT
(1952-2008) 67 mins

Figures in the landscape: polymorphous, animal, vegetable, mineral, visible or invisible. Human habitation writes & performs the landscape as much as the landscape inscribes & enacts human presence. These themes are explored by filmmakers & visual artists including Patricia Piccinini, Ben Rivers, Margaret Tait, George Barber & Tammy Honey.

8:20 - FIGURING LANDSCAPES: ANTI-TERRAIN
(1983-2007) 66 mins

Landscape is shaped by our relationship to it. Custodian-ship of the land & its efficacy transcends a human lifetime; as a result the physical shape of the environment & its cultural & imaginative formation will always be political. Featuring work by filmmakers & artists John Hughes, Destiny Deacon, Semiconductor, Peter Callas, Susan Norrie & Daniel Crooks.

9:40 - STONES IN THE BUSH
(1970-72) 74 mins

This program incorporates 2 early 1970s experimental documentaries that explore the relationship between Ned Kelly & the landscape tradition of Australian art & writing. A Stone in the Bush - Mick Glasheen, Martyn Sanderson & John Allen (1970) 26 mins. An impressionistic record of the location shooting of Tony Richardson’s Ned Kelly, featuring Mick Jagger & the music of The Rolling Stones. Kelly Country - Stuart Cooper (1972) 48 mins. Co-produced by Sidney Nolan & featuring a commentary by Orson Welles, Cooper’s essayistic documentary follows Nolan as he travels to various iconic locations.

Prints in this session courtesy of NFSA.