Performative Landscapes public programPanel event

Performative Landscapes brings artists, makers and the public together on the historic grounds of Rosny Farm for an evolving outdoor project centred around the construction of a dry-stone wall. Using stone, earth, movement and physical labour, the project considers how the places around us are made – and how they, in turn, shape the way we move, gather and live. 

Performative Landscapes public panel event will hear from three Tasmanian practitioners who have a shared interest in stone and placemaking. The project invites geologist and dry stone waller, Andrew Garner, Horticulturalist, Educator and Former Deputy Director of Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, Mark Fountain; and Author, Artist and General Practitioner, Jennie Jackson to participate in a panel discussion alongside artist and curator, Tash Bradley-Cross. They will give insight into how their material connections and practices have impacted their connection to place and how they think about the urban and landscape around us and engage with it in the everyday. 

This is an outdoor event. Patrons should bring a hat and sunscreen.

Refreshments/afternoon tea provided. Free entry with registration.

Bio: Andrew Garner

A Tasmanian geologist, dry stone waller, hedge layer and hobby farmer with “rocks in his head…”

Andrew graduated from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in geology in 1994, and awarded First Class Honours in Volcanology in 1996. Andrew has spent many years working in mineral exploration  which has taken him to outback Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania in the search for gold, copper, silver, lead and lithium. Other places visited include New Zealand (volcanology) and Antarctica for a hectic 2017-18 summer season at Davis Station for the Australian Antarctic Division. Very much an “outdoors person” any time spent walking the hills, valleys and bush is to be savoured.

A career in geology was paused for 18 years in order to raise a family, so Andrew learnt new trades: dry stone walling and hedge laying. These ancient traditional trades complimented the Tasmanian landscape and European heritage and saw the creation of “Sticks and Stones” a business partnership with James Boxhall. Skills were added over time to include general masonry, hand-cut lettering, split post and rail fencing and shingle splitting.  When at home, farm and garden duties include raising sheep and chooks, replacing fencing, and managing a heritage cider apple orchard.  Additional hobbies and activities include bush walking, gold and gemstone fossicking, cider making, bad guitar playing and Renaissance sword fighting. Andrew is a member of several interest groups and former committee member for the Dry Stone Walls Association of Australia.

Bio: Mark Fountain

Mark has spent most of his working life in horticulture as a nurseryman, part-time horticulture teacher and as a former Deputy Director of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. He now calls himself a hermit gardener. Based on a lifelong interest in plants, nature, gardens and art his time is now spent thinking about, constructing and planting his own garden. Among Tall Trees is a native garden that is more felt than designed. It has been developed using mostly Tasmanian plants and local species propagated from plants growing on Mount Rumney. The garden is featured in Claire Takac’s book Visionary, gardens and landscapes for our future and is located on a dry (and getting drier) ridgeline in peri-urban, dry sclerophyll bushland. The garden tries to co-exist with the native wildlife and takes account of the likelihood of bushfires.

Bio: Jennie Jackson

Jennie is a descendent of convict quarryman, Thomas Herbert, of the Ross Bridge party. Her work as a general practitioner in the midlands of Tasmania took her across the Ross Bridge between clinics in Oatlands and Campbell Town every rostered day, while she was majoring in sculpture at the Tasmanian School of Art. As Jennie researched and interpreted the details of the carvings, she realised the value of her practice of Jungian psychology and women’s health. These threads have combined into a fascination with the Ross Bridge sculptures. Over eight years she has prepared biographies of Daniel Herbert, Charles Atkinson, Rum John Conn and Mary Witherington and has developed an archive, a web site, lectured, written essays and published a small book with The People’s Library, The Ross Bridge, A Cast of Characters. (2018). Her aim is to educate everyone about the significance and rarity of the convicts’ subversive art before the carvings weather away. 

Performative Landscapes involves a collective of artists and producers including Natasha Bradley-Cross, Bliss Sandhu, Keryn & Mark Fountain and Florian Kessler.