Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Residency

Following on from recent works at other Australian museums, Barking Spider Visual Theatre was in Hobart for a month-long residency at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) over January 2014.This forms part of a new Artist in Residence (AIR) program produced by TMAG which focused on enhancing creative opportunities for young children and families. This program is an AccessArt initiative, supported by Detached Cultural Organisation.

CLICK HERE to see the AIR blog. Updated daily throughout the residency, this blog gives great detail and insight into the hands-on progress of the programme and the the art.

Melbourne-based artists Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane researched TMAG’s Antarctic Collection. With children and families, they created a new work “Antarctic Gaze” which was presented on two showing days at the end of the residency. Toward the last days of the residency they were joined by other Barking Spider artists, Caitlyn Barclay (assistant builder & puppeteer) and company photographer Sarah Walker.

The focus of the research was on icebergs – in particular the B-15 iceberg. With children, the artists created an iceberg installation and a large puppet – designed by a four-year old girl.. We asked children to draw a creature that will save the Antarctic from melting, and chose “The Ice-Eractic” as named by the originating artist, four-year-old Caitlyn. The Ice-Eractic was a long, worm-like, winged, mythical-looking creature that was very kind, and sucked up water at one end and sprayed out ice at the other. Artists designed the puppet from the the 2-D drawing, then worked with kids on the puppet’s decoration.

WHAT DID THE FINAL OUTCOME SHOWING INVOLVE?

A few days prior to the showing, we had installed an iceberg, based on the B-15, into the Central Gallery Space. On the two performance-showing days, the giant puppet – the Ice-Eractic swam around and under the iceberg, playing with audience members as it went. CLICK HERE to see the Ice-Eractic in action.

ICEBERG

The iceberg we created was an artistic interpretation of “Iceberg B-15”.

Iceberg B-15 is the world’s largest recorded iceberg. It originally measured around 295 km long and was 37 km wide, with a surface area of 11,000 km² —larger than the island of Jamaica. Calved from the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica in March 2000, after almost a decade, parts of B-15 still had not melted. It’s shape has altered over time, but it’s still monumental in proportion.

Barking Spider Visual Theatre artists designed and built this so that the iceberg can be observed sitting in an ocean. The iceberg could be viewed from on top – from the balcony, and from underneath – from the floor level in TMAG’s Central Gallery. The artists created a pod of whales swimming around under the iceberg, on top the Aurora Australis could be seen ploughing it’s way through the icy waters.

ESPECIALLY FOR CHILDREN

Children (and adults) were invited to climb under the iceberg and to look inside. There they could espy a special Antarctic creature – a hidden penguin.  Children were encouraged to engage directly with the iceberg – to touch it, walk under it and to explore.

 ICE-ERACTIC DEVELOPMENT TO PRESENTATION

Children were asked on Day 2 of the AIR residency to draw a creature, being or spirit that would help save Antarctica from melting. There were dozens of incredible, imaginative and inventive designs. The artists selected one – the Ice-Eractic – so named and created by a 4-year-old girl called Caitlyn.

This drawing was drafted into a design for a 3-D, 7-metre long puppet. In the second week of school holidays, for the school holiday programme, we asked children to decorate hair for the Ice-Eractic.  We were given a box of cash register paper rolls, that were too big for the TMAG cash registers. We set up an Ice-Eractic hair colouring factory, where kids could draw, write, and colour to their hearts content, creating metres and metres of colourful hair. Once hot-glued into place by the artists, the Ice-Eractic was ready to meet the TMAG visitors.

On Thursday January 30^th and Saturday February 1^st, the puppet emerged from its cave, and swam around the iceberg, interacting with people as it went.

 PUPPETEERS (across the two performances):

Penelope Bartlau
Jason Lehane
Rebecca Holmes
Elmo Battaglene
Caitlyn Barclay
Bryony Geeves

Director’s assistant:
Lily Baird

Assistant Puppet Builder:
Caitlyn Barclay

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE:

We became fascinated with the Antarctic and Antarctica has been the focus of the residency.

Icebergs, their formation, colours and scale have been of particular interest and have formed a major part of the research area of our work. Practically, the world around an iceberg, and the world of Antarctica have had a short but intensive history of scientific period of study and research since Antarctica has become (relatively) more accessible. However, there is plenty that scientific research has yet to uncover, and this remains a playground for the imagination. Our work aims to combine both – the discovered world of Antarctica and the imagined.

We are concerned about the impact of global warming. The polar regions of the Earth are where climate change is having the most visible and significant impacts.

Here is a quote from a UK website on the subject:

http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk

“Antarctica has experienced air temperature increases of 3°C in the Antarctic Peninsula Although that might not seem very much, it is 5 times the mean rate of global warming as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

Over the past 50 years, the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula has been one of the most rapidly warming parts of the planet. This warming is not only restricted to the land but can also be noted in the Southern Ocean. Upper ocean temperatures to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula have increased over 1°C since 1955. It has now been established that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is warming more rapidly than the global ocean as a whole. Studying climate change in Antarctica is important because it enables scientists to predict more accurately future climate change and provide information to politicians and policy makers.

The warming of the Antarctic Peninsula is causing changes to the physical and living environment of Antarctica. The distribution of penguin colonies has changed as the sea ice conditions alter. Melting of perennial snow and ice covers has resulted in increased colonisation by plants. A long-term decline in the abundance of Antarctic krill in the SW Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean may be associated with reduced sea ice cover. Large changes have occurred in the ice cover of the Peninsula. Many glaciers have retreated and ice shelves that formerly fringed the Peninsula have been observed to retreat in recent years and some have collapsed completely.”

We hope that by creating this work, we are able to raise awareness about global warming and it’s impact on Antarctica, and thereto impact on the whole globe.

THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

This is a common saying: “We can only see the tip of the iceberg”. It means that we only perceive a small part of a problem or a situation – and is really much larger than it appears.

We were interested in creating an installation where visitors have an opportunity to see the bottom part of the iceberg, as well as the top – and if  you were to meditate on what the deeper implications of this in your own life and the world around you, what would you discover, reveal or uncover? Go deeply into the iceberg, and you may discover something unexpected, and perhaps, delightful! – As daunting as this might seem from the outset. This iceberg is intended to be an object of beauty, that may inspire curiosity, inquiry and possibly change.

This is a reflection of the problem of global warming, and we hope that this work encourages everyone who encounters it to think about the simple things they can do to affect change.Here’s a great website to look at for more information:

Top 10 things you can do to reduce Global Warming

TMAG TEAM

The team at TMAG was incredible. This has been one of the best – if not THE best residency experience we have had. This group of people is kind, thoughtful, open, responsive, generous, aware, considered and fun. An extraordinarily high functioning team. We were supported in every aspect of the residency, and the communication was easy and fluid. For anyone who is considering this residency in the future – they don’t come much better than this.

A massive thank you to the Centre of Learning and Discovery team: Bec Tudor, Rebecca Holmes, Andy Baird, Richard Hale, Kate Morris and John Retallick.

To Jennifer Storer, Redevelopment Project Manager

To Richard Kowaluck, Katarnya Maynard, Teangi Brown, Nunami Sculthorpe-Green and all the Visitors Services team.

THE NITTY-GRITTY OF THE RESIDENCY

Barking Spider’s work was one half delivering public programmes, which included; play groups, school holiday rolling workshops, family day presentations and rolling puppet-making workshop, open studios, artists talks and a PD programme for artists and educators.

CLICK HERE to see the Giant Floating Illuminated Jellyfish being performed in the TMAG Central Gallery as a part of the Family Day programme.

The other half was time spent on the artwork itself – although most of the time the public programmes – working with children – merged with the development and build of the artworks. Children directly and by design had influence and impact on the final presentation, that being the iceberg and the Ice-Eractic. This is exactly what we had hoped for. We could not be happier that the artistic decisions and processes truly had children as creative collaborators.

This residency was absolutely designed as a public programme. We hope that other museums will be as bold in taking such a direct approach in planning and presentation. Yesterday afternoon, Andy Bard clearly said that the intention of this residency is to benefit the general public / TMAG visitors. Many other residencies are pitched toward being of central benefit tot he artist/s. We admire this choice of TMAG’s, and we think it’s a choice that makes sense. Whenever the company is at work, we ask and keep asking: What is the audience going to experience? What do we hope and expect the audience to receive? TMAG and Barking Spider Visual Theatre have a similar approach.

So then, the question has to be asked, what were the benefits to TMAG visitors?

IMPACT ON VISITORS

The very reason we go to a museum – to ignite and inspire and to satiate curiosity, were delivered through this programme. The residency part of TMAG makes it like a living museum. For visitors who came to participate or even just observe the work of the residency, they were interactive with a living, breathing, changing thing – one that they could influence and shape.

Moreover, the subject matter of Antarctica was of site-specific relevance to Hobart: Hobartians know about Antarctica, and a decent percentage (compared to any other Australian City) have been there. Secondly, we are passionate about increasing awareness of Global Warming and the significant impact it is having. By choosing Antarctica we created a situation whereby we could increase awareness. The joy was in increasing this awareness in a playful and thereto thought – provoking way.