Connection, image by Forte.
A key concept for regenerative design is to move from an extractive position where nature is viewed as a resource to instead be co-evolving with nature. Instead of thinking of the system as removed from us, we can see ourselves as part of the system. What role can the arts play in establishing the shift and generating more symbiotic relations between humans, more than humans and the environment? We hear from a number of artists whose practice is at the forefront of this thinking and look at past and current projects.
Lead
Kate Goodwin
Speakers
Anne Loxley
Mike Horne
Victoria Hunt
Eugenia Lim
Anne Loxley is an award-winning curator who specialises in collaborating with artists and communities to creatively address significant issues. In 2020 she joined ACE as Executive Director. Previously Anne was Senior Curator, C3West, for Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, (2011-2019) where she developed innovative ways for artists to collaborate with communities, businesses and non-arts organisations, to address important concerns. Anne is Deputy Chair of the City of Sydney’s Public Art Advisory Panel, and a member of these organisations: Western Sydney Arts Alliance Working Group, Western Sydney Women’s Leadership Network – Art and Culture and the Sydney Cultural Network council. With Blair French, she co-edited Civic Actions: Artists’ Practices Beyond the Museum (2017).
Mike Horne, Founder and Director of Turf Design Studio, has 30 years local and international experience; working across masterplan, civic, residential, education, infrastructure, open space and ecological projects - for both private and government sectors. Mike has been instrumental in numerous landmark projects including Central Park Sydney, Sydney Park, Sydney Olympic Park and Sydney University Public Domain. Mike led Turf’s public domain design for the Stratford Waterfront: a new cultural and educational district in London’s Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park 2015-2017. Prior to establishing Turf, Mike worked for the NSW Government - first as Principal Landscape Architect at the NSW Government Architect and from 1995-2000 seconded to the Olympic Coordination Authority as Manager, Games Design.
Mike has taught in the Urban Design Masters program at University of Sydney and undertaken many speaking engagements; including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Harvard Design School.
Victoria Hunt- multidisciplinary artist with ancestral affiliations to Te Arawa, Rongow-haakata, Kahungunu (Māori) and Pakeha Irish, English, Finnish heritages. Born on Kombumerri Country (Surfers Paradise), their extensive work as a dancer, choreographer, director, dramaturg, photographer and film maker delves into Indigenous epistemologies within diasporic concepts of identity formation and belonging. Grounded in Mātauaranga Māori, Body Weather philosophy/practice and IndigiQueer revitalization within creation practices, they traverse the politics of Rematriation – inserting bodies into frameworks of power, for future ancestors. Their award-winning performance, installation and film works have toured nationally and internationally to critical acclaim.
Eugenia Lim is an artist of Chinese-Singaporean ancestry who works across body, lens, social and spatial practice to explore how migration and capital cut, divide and bond our interdependent world. An ongoing strand of practice considers work, collectivity, technology and ethics—and art and capital as strange bedfellows.