Yuggara/Ugarapul/ Jinibara Country (Somerset)
Carer Team
March 6, 2024
Grass Care Package
Grass Care Package, a collaborative artwork by Pipier Weller and Jason Murphy, is a personal and direct response to the Carbon Dating Project. In conjunction with the Carbon Dating team and their host Gallery, the Condensery, Pipier and Jason cultivated a small garden of native grasses, Kangaroo Grass, Silky Blue, Barbed Wire, and Top Scented, that were specifically chosen for their suitability to their local Country and bioregion. This grass garden was established at the rear of The Condensery Region Gallery in Toogoolawah and remains as a testament to the important message of this project. Working collaboratively, Pipier and Jason designed have created a ‘grass care package’ that allows audiences to purchase a tote bag with a postcard inside from the gallery with proceeds being donated to a local environmental project selected by that gallery. The digital prints on these tote bags capture the essence of the grasses planted at the Condensery and feature interlocking repetitive images of the animals that these grasses encountered. The postcards inside these tote bags, six in total, are a series of cyanotype prints that were created using seeds and materials sourced from these endemic grasses and feature information about the grasses used in all locations of the Carbon Dating Project on the back". [Pipier Weller and Jason Murphy, 2023]
Installation
Materials:
- Printed tote bags
- 6 x Postcards of cyanotype grass prints
Measurements:
Variable
bags 35cmx56cm, postcards 19x14cm
The project carers in Somerset were Jason Murphy and Pipier Weller. (See their biographies in the Bio tab above). Their grass garden was located at the rear of The Condensery Region Gallery in Toogoolawah, Somerset, Qld The Interweaver was exhibited in the main foyer of the gallery (Oct-Nov 2022) - and with a visual line of site between the two that stretched the length of the gallery.
Jason and Pipier planted Kangaroo Grass, Silky Blue, Barbed Wire and Top Scented - endemic grass well suited to their local Country/bioregion.
This site of the project has also been further supported by gallery partner The Condensery (with special thanks to director Rachel Arndt) and a Somerset Regional Council RADF grant. Seeds were supplied by Native Seeds Pty.
Jason Murphy is a Dungidau man of Jinibara descent in Southeast Queensland, born in West End and raised in and around Brisbane. His artwork utilises acrylic paintings, collage and drawings to critique social, political and cultural issues affecting Aboriginal people. He holds a BA of Creative Arts with Honours has contributed to the development of Jason’s art practice. He has completed a Master of Visual Arts focusing upon institutional critique and identity politics and furthered his education to complete the Masters of Visual Arts Honours.
Pipier Weller is an emerging Contemporary artist whose practice often investigates the conceptual themes of the body, representation, commodification, sexualisation and identity through a feminist lens. Feminism is a fundamental part of Pipier’s practice that contextually informs every work she makes and the way she interprets the world. Assembling, deconstructing, and reconstructing appropriated materials, like text and online images, through complex, artist-led research, and laborious processes are continual material approaches Pipier uses within her practice. Currently, Pipier is exploring the impacts and implications the digital sphere, particularly social media platforms, has on our bodies and identities, and the role and representation of women within these spaces. Pipier’s practice ultimately aims to create a space for audiences that facilitate discussions about these gender-based and political issues.
Carbon_Dating is an experimental artwork designed to seed ‘consensual’ partnerships between Australian native grasses and humans, based upon their shared need to breathe each other’s ‘exhaled’ air.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the many lands on which we live, work and create, including our collaborators on Yirrganydji, Barunggam, Jagera/Yuggera, Turbal, Ugarapul, Jinibara, Kabi Kabi and Kombumerri Country. We acknowledge their ongoing connection and custodianship for Country. We pay our deep respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We recognise First Nations people as the first artists and scientists. Always was, always will be.
The 2024-5 Carbon_Dating exhibition tour is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts QueenslandAssisted by QUT School of Creative Practice, International Art Services (IAS), Native Seeds Pty Ltd, Artfully, and Embodied Media.
Between 2019-23 this project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. It was also supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF). The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government: Cairns Regional Council; Western Downs Regional Council; City of Gold Coast Council; Somerset Regional Council; and ArtsCoast as part of Sunshine Coast Council’s RADF program to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
Thanks also to QUT (School of Creative Practice, QUT Office of eResearch and Samford Ecological Research Facility). NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns; Dogwood Crossing Gallery, Miles; HOTA, Gold Coast; The Condensery, Toogooloowah; Caloundra Regional Gallery, Caloundra; Native Seeds Pty Ltd and ReBul Packaging.
