(Un)Natural urges

(Un)Natural Urges was a joint exhibition with Merri Randell at Brenda May Galleries in Sydney in 2016. The exhibition was held in the Black Box Projects space and used a combination of animation and surreal photography to make us rethink what we understand about nature. This work was part of a larger research project, which was concerned with using animation to convey a sense of place. The primary investigation focused on the heritage site of the former Peel Island Lazaret, on the island of Teerk Roo Ra in Moreton Bay, Queensland. The project aimed to develop a style of motion that embodied the 'genius loci', or 'sense of place' of that site. The study investigated how conceptions of place are overlaid by aspects of history, memory and the imagination and contributed to the academic discourse around place and place-making in animation practice in Australia. The methodology for the project was designed to span multiple production cycles over a period of six years, and used this structure as a means to provoke practice through engaging with a variety of locations, mediums and display formats. Each exhibition and public presentation contributed to the development of the overall project , and the culmination of the project was the creation of a style of motion design which employed a method of transposing stereotypic movement patterns onto bespoke hand crafted armatures as a means of conveying the sense of place of the Peel Island Lazaret. A series of animated creative works were constructed using this method and were subsequently published and discussed across a variety of formats. The measures for significance of this project are geographic reach and peer validation which ranged from curated white cube and black cube exhibitions, exhibitions at regional and commercial galleries, public programs, local and international artist residencies, paid commissions with public screenings through to printed catalogs with academic essays. A range of publicity has promoted the research displayed at these public events, which has also been presented at 4 national and international conferences. 'Nocturne #5' (2015) ultimately won a national prize at the CCP salon in Melbourne 2015