CRITICAL LANDSCAPES: THE POLYMORPHIC WORLDS OF ROSS GIBSON

Ross Gibson (1956–2023) was a man of many parts. Forging a significant career as an academic, curator, historian, multimedia artist, creative director and producer, poet, writer and filmmaker, Gibson is one of the key figures in the examination of Australian culture, landscape, ecology, place and history over the last 45 years. A highly influential writer and thinker, his work commonly explores the cultural and material legacies of colonialism, creatively examines the largely forgotten, somewhat accidental archives of Australian history (such as the ASIO-produced film footage lodged in the National Archives of Australia or the thousands of uncatalogued crime scene photographs held in Sydney’s Justice & Police Museum), and branches across a wide range of forms, media and outlets. Gibson first came to prominence for his groundbreaking work on the literary imagination and representation of Australia in the book The Diminishing Paradise (1984) and for his highly influential short film Camera Natura (1986). These two works established Gibson’s essayistic, expansive, idiosyncratic, experimental and iterative approach across a range of media. They also foregrounded a concern with the legacies of colonialism and the impact that representation and habitation have on our understanding of place. Gibson had a highly successful academic career across such institutions as UTS and the University of Sydney, and was the Centenary Professor of Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra. He was the Creative Director for the establishment of ACMI and was a senior consultant producer during the early years of the Museum of Sydney. Gibson’s output and contribution were enormous and also includes a range of audiovisual works exhibited in galleries, museums, online and in cinemas. This tribute foregrounds the work Gibson made for the cinema including his sole fiction feature, the rarely screened boxing-world drama Dead to the World (1991), and his remarkable exploration of the ancient histories and legacies of the Pilliga Forest in northern New Sound Wales, Wild (1992).

Wednesday 25 November

7:00pm CAMERA NATURA

Ross Gibson (1986) 32 mins – G

With animation by Lee Whitmore and cinematography by Ray Argall, and made in close collaboration with producer John Cruthers, Gibson’s most widely discussed film expands upon an earlier essay of the same name and his landmark book The Diminishing Paradise to examine the ways in which the Australian landscape has been represented and imagined by European historians, filmmakers, photographers, writers, cartographers and painters. Followed by Wild Ross Gibson (1992) 54 mins – Unclassified 15+. Drawing on Eric Rolls’ monumental study A Million Wild Acres, Gibson’s fecund essay film explores the unruly terrain of the Pilliga Forest in northern New South Wales, examining and probing its ancient cultural and environmental history.

To be introduced by Ross Gibson’s creative and life collaborator, Kathryn Bird

8:50pm DEAD TO THE WORLD

Ross Gibson (1991) 86 mins – Unclassified 15+

Set in Newtown, Gibson’s only feature was directly inspired by the fast-talking boxing films of the 1940s and 1950s as well as the social changes taking place in Australia during the early 1990s. Centred around a boxing gym owned by a female Polish immigrant, the film examines the tensions between the working class and a burgeoning gentrification, with these two disparate realms juxtaposing and challenging one another inside and outside of the ring. Starring Lynette Curran, John Doyle (aka Rampaging Roy Slaven), Richard Roxburgh and Noah Taylor. Rarely screened since completion, this restoration presents the director’s preferred cut. Preceded by head_phone_film_poems Ross Gibson (2021) 25 mins – Unclassified 15+. A selection of suggestive, haunting short poetic works created from the “found” archives of ASIO, Sydney’s Justice & Police Museum and Gibson’s own collection of late-night footage shot in his own neighbourhood.

To be introduced by Ross Gibson’s creative and life collaborator, Kathryn Bird.