|
February 11, 2010
I have spent the day taking photographs in and around Queenstown and the Iron Blow open cut mine whilst Suzanne explored the Gordon River on an afternoon river cruise.
Queenstown hasn't changed much from when I was here in 2006. It is still a mining town:-- Vendanta Resources now own the Mt. Lyell copper mine. They have have a strong Indian connection re copper mining. The King River is still dead. The Queen River is still polluted.
However, the vegetation on the denuded hills is now slowing regrowing:
Gary Sauer-Thompson, Queenstown 2006
Whilst there I came across Raymond Arnold, an Australian artist/printmaker, who established Landscape Art Research Queenstown [LARQ], a non-profit studio/gallery in 2006. He threw in a lecturing job at the University of Tasmania to set up LARQ.
LARQ’s main intent is to develop a ‘wilderness’ art space with an imbedded residency program that will become a nest for incubation for his own art practice and that of others in response to the natural and heritage values inherent in the region.
Raymond Arnold, Western Mountain Ecology - The relationship between things rather than the things themselves, 2006, Acrylic on canvas (diptych)
LARQ is an artist run initiative which focuses on the western region of Tasmania. It hosts international artist residencies, curates exhibitions, manages workshops, and gallery talks. It offers something positive to a town that had been on a downward spiral as late as 2006, when we last visited.
|
