Les Sculptures Refusee Residency and Exhibition (2023)
Annelies Jahn and Jane Burton Taylor
Annelies Jahn and Jane Burton - Q Station Residency, North Head, Sydney
In our LSR Q Station residency in July/ August 2023, we continued to explore our collaborative interest of working on and with the land, making artworks that did not interfere with the natural environment but instead supported indigenous flora, fauna and landscape.
A large part of our work engaged care of country, by removing invasive weeds such as the (then seeding) whisky grass. The grass was introduced by importers who used it to sit between whisky bottles imported from Ireland and Scotland. We removed the grass from the eastern side of the entry road to Q Station and from the immediate area around the LSR studio and adjoining cottage. We also removed lantana, including roots, from this latter area. Both species were reused in installations for our open studio on-site.
During the residency, we undertook a daily gleaning of the beach and subsequently repurposed the smaller pieces of plastic gathered into ‘postcards’, some of which we made by making the paper ourselves; some of which also dyed using found kelp or fallen banksia. The result was a series of postcards that look like abstracts with colourful fragments of plastic imbedded within them. There is a possibility that this series be further developed by making ‘postcards’ with embedded plastics from beaches around Sydney: potentially addressed and posted to politicians and key figures in polluting companies like Coca Cola.
We further explored the site and the adjoining national park with Karen Smith, from the nearby Indigenous Heritage Office, which was a great privilege and enlightening, especially in terms of care of country and bush fire management; and in the less tangible way she viewed the place with gentle respect and a high cultural and environmental awareness. In addition, we went on a walk with Jenny Wilson from the North Head Sanctuary Foundation, which included a visit to the Third Cemetery. She shared with us her extensive knowledge of the Endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Shrub, the habitat that once dominated the Sydney Basin, but the last major stand of which now survives on North Head.
Finally, we engaged with the site by undertaking a series of rubbings of rock outcrops, bush and heritage buildings, including some memorials. We used archival tissue under silk, to ensure no transfer of graphite. We then repeatedly dyed and re -rubbed these lengths of fabric to build up impressions and depth of colour. In the drying process these inked fabrics, were buffeted by wind and rain, which in turn left further makings.
We have since developed two works from the residency and they were shown in the LSR Exhibition in October 2023; Water View, a kinetic work which emitted mist at set intervals, and Grass Chair, a found chair fitted with around 1000 stalks of whisky grass with their tips dipped in beeswax to encase their seeds.
In our LSR Q Station residency in July/ August 2023, we continued to explore our collaborative interest of working on and with the land, making artworks that did not interfere with the natural environment but instead supported indigenous flora, fauna and landscape.
A large part of our work engaged care of country, by removing invasive weeds such as the (then seeding) whisky grass. The grass was introduced by importers who used it to sit between whisky bottles imported from Ireland and Scotland. We removed the grass from the eastern side of the entry road to Q Station and from the immediate area around the LSR studio and adjoining cottage. We also removed lantana, including roots, from this latter area. Both species were reused in installations for our open studio on-site.
During the residency, we undertook a daily gleaning of the beach and subsequently repurposed the smaller pieces of plastic gathered into ‘postcards’, some of which we made by making the paper ourselves; some of which also dyed using found kelp or fallen banksia. The result was a series of postcards that look like abstracts with colourful fragments of plastic imbedded within them. There is a possibility that this series be further developed by making ‘postcards’ with embedded plastics from beaches around Sydney: potentially addressed and posted to politicians and key figures in polluting companies like Coca Cola.
We further explored the site and the adjoining national park with Karen Smith, from the nearby Indigenous Heritage Office, which was a great privilege and enlightening, especially in terms of care of country and bush fire management; and in the less tangible way she viewed the place with gentle respect and a high cultural and environmental awareness. In addition, we went on a walk with Jenny Wilson from the North Head Sanctuary Foundation, which included a visit to the Third Cemetery. She shared with us her extensive knowledge of the Endangered Eastern Suburbs Banksia Shrub, the habitat that once dominated the Sydney Basin, but the last major stand of which now survives on North Head.
Finally, we engaged with the site by undertaking a series of rubbings of rock outcrops, bush and heritage buildings, including some memorials. We used archival tissue under silk, to ensure no transfer of graphite. We then repeatedly dyed and re -rubbed these lengths of fabric to build up impressions and depth of colour. In the drying process these inked fabrics, were buffeted by wind and rain, which in turn left further makings.
We have since developed two works from the residency and they were shown in the LSR Exhibition in October 2023; Water View, a kinetic work which emitted mist at set intervals, and Grass Chair, a found chair fitted with around 1000 stalks of whisky grass with their tips dipped in beeswax to encase their seeds.