Williams River Valley Artists' Project

BYLONG WON - FOOD BOWL NOT COAL HOLE

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 09:32:00 +0000

On December 18, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that 'the NSW Land and Environment Court has upheld a decision by the state’s Independent Planning Commission to reject a controversial coal mine planned for rich farmland north-west of Sydney', in the Bylong Valley.

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/energy-giant-loses-bylong-coal-mine-appeal-in-win-for-anti-coal-groups-20201218-p56orq.html

See earlier posts on the Bylong Valley

While We Sleep open till 30 July

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 03:43:00 +0000

Kingsley Faulkner on Cigarettes, asbestos, now fossil fuels. The impacts of big business on public health

Artlink review of Fieldwork by Ann Finegan

Closing event and artists talks 2-5pm Saturday 30 July. All welcome

above foreground: WRVAP While We Sleep 2016 lights,model trucks, wall

While We Sleep is a WRVAP project that is part of FIELDWORK: artist encounters, an exhibition project curated by Gary Warner, that creates spatial, conceptual, sonic and material conversations between recent works of a collection of artists with decades-long practice trajectories involving, in various ways, work in the field or of the field.

FIELDWORK: artist encounters is open 11am - 5pm Monday - Friday and Saturday 11am - 4pm at SCA Galleries, Sydney College of the Arts, Balmain Road (entry opposite Cecily St), Rozelle, NSW.

While We Sleep is a collaborative exhibition that includes both collaborative and individual work by WRVAP artists Suzanne Bartos, Neil Berecry Brown, Sue Callanan, Juliet Fowler Smith, Noelene Lucas, Margaret Roberts, David Watson and Toni Warburton. It draws on our visits to Bylong, Bulga, Maules Creek, Wollar and other places in NSW where we engaged with communities who are working courageously to protect themselves and their environment from the devastating onslaught of big coal mining.

above back-front: Noelene Lucas While We Sleep 2016 video; L: Juliet Fowler Smith So Many Stories 2016 carpet, chalk; R: Neil Berecry Brown Babylon 2016 mixed media and LED; Sue Callanan You Cooked Yet? 2016 paint and found commercial hair driers; Margaret Roberts BULGA 2015, ISDS 2015 tulle; Suzanne Bartos Spin 2016 repurposed 44-gallon drums and LED signs.

above L-R: Neil Berecry Brown Babylon 2016 mixedmedia and LED, Margaret Roberts ISDS 2015 and part of BYLONG 2015, tulle on floor; Juliet Fowler Smith So Many Stories 2016 photographic prints on wall; Suzanne Bartos Spin 2016 repurposed 44-gallon drums and LED signs.

above back:David Watson+Gary Higgin The Bridge 2016;Toni Warburton care and maintenance2016
see The Bridge in process and context: http://www.davidwatson.net.au/the-bridge/

David Watson Australian Navigators 2015 Lambda print

FIELDWORK opens Wednesday 6 July

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 06:08:00 +0000

Break Free Newcastle

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Sun, 08 May 2016 17:16:00 +0000

India Times

Newcastle Herald

Twitter

Visit to Wollar

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 12:55:00 +0000

THIS IS MINE – NOT THE MINE’S

Col Faulkner outside his c. 1904

ex-butcher’s shop home in Wollar

Col ‘Midget’ Faulkner still holds the record, he says, for the longest tube ride on Sydney’s south side. Never one for publicity or competitions, Col – not to be confused with Bernard ‘Midget’ Farrelly – watched the greats come and go, and gave most of them more than he got: even world-champion Nat Young once made the mistake of dropping in on Col’s wave at Cronulla Point!

Nowadays Col lives a long way from the surf, in the tiny, dying hamlet of Wollar, 50 km north-east of Mudgee, five hours’ drive from Sydney. He lobbed there 30 years ago to visit his uncle, helped out with the shearing for six months, and never left. Col loved the peace and quiet - of being quite a way from anywhere. But for the past decade his town has been stealthily besieged, its social fabric eroded by the insidious intrusion of multinational Peabody Energy (the world’s largest private-sector coal company – recently declared bankrupt in the US), which operates the Wilpinjong coal mine, ever-closer to town. The NSW government is currently considering (i.e. about to approve) Pit 8 – an expansion which will bring more unacceptable dust, noise and division to the town and its dwindling population. Already residents have lost the mechanic and the hardware/stockfeed supply … and the school’s down to eight pupils. Since the bottleshop closed there's not even anywhere you can buy a drink.

Bev Smiles’ prescient COAL IS OVER! placard, Newcastle 2008

Photo: Sharyn Munro

On the invitation of long-time local anti-coal campaigner Bev Smiles, members of WRVAP attended a meeting convened in the Wollar Memorial Hall on 20 April 2016 to discuss ways in which the townsfolk might get a better deal (or rather, how a really bad deal from an industry now in its death throes, might be sweetened)…

Wollar Memorial Hall

After a number of residents (including Col) have had their say, several of us speak against the mine expansion – about degraded environments, compensation for ravaged social fabric, and mine remediation. Although the meeting is locally framed we feel impelled to emphasise that the extraction and burning of coal is currently destroying not only Wollar’s but the entire planet’s social and environmental fabric. [Only the day before we’d learnt that the corals in Sydney Harbour were bleaching due to dangerously warm ocean temperatures]. After a comfortable night’s sleep @ BIG4 Mudgee we drive back to Wollar next morning to take some photos. In the car we re-visit the complex traumas of coal mining and struggle once again to devise a manner in which we might capture its inhuman face, its incalculable costs within the spaces of a Sydney art gallery. Suddenly I see Col pacing within a cage, a white-maned man/lion neutered by circumstances beyond his control, speaking to (and perhaps growling at) visitors. When we meet him again later that morning I tell Col that we might need HIM for our exhibition, adding ‘but you probably wouldn’t want to come down to Sydney, would you?’. ‘Na’, he drawls, ‘I got outta there’.

David Watson 2016

Bev Smiles, 2017: Upper Hunter small communities are paying the price for the NSW Government's support for coal

Bev Smiles arrested under draconian anti-protest laws 2017

Once-promising road trip

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 05:59:00 +0000

Sydney Morning Herald 22.1.16

This afternoon, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 'On Wednesday and Thursday senior officials were dispatched on a road trip to hear concerns of anti-coal activists.'

'The tour adds to signs that the push to develop coal mines is stalling, and may even face stiff new regulation.'

Bulga keeps fighting

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 07:54:00 +0000

update: Bulga comes to Sydney 7 August

update: Wanarua elders face court 15 Sept

update: 'we live on the doorstep of the mine'

update police arrest Wanarua elders Kevin Taggart and Patricia Hansson

update: Bulga protest at Rio Tinto AGM

update: disputed land clearing

Make Some Noise For Bulga Thurs Dec 17th 2015, Macquarie Place Park
(opposite NSW Planning Dept)  Sydney. Image Singeton Argus

A rally calling for Justice for Bulga,Thursday 12 November  2015,
outside NSW Supreme Court Sydney, image: Land Water Future

Bulga loses

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 23:07:00 +0000

On October 22 the SMH reported that Rio Tinto's plans to extend the life of its Mount Thorley Warkworth open-cut coal mine has moved another step closer to final approval after it gained approval from the Planning Assessment Commission's review panel.

Expansion of Rio Tinto's Warkworth open-cut coal mine near Bulga gets the go-ahead.

In its press release, Lock the Gate said the Rio Tinto Warkworth mine win robs Bulga of justice. The independent planning panel’s recommendation to approve Rio Tinto’s Mount Thorley Warkworth mine expansion proposal is a blow for the Bulga community, who have fought the proposal for five years and twice won in court, says Mr John Krey, President of the Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association.


Residents of Bulga have fought fiercely against the expansion . . .Photo John Krey

On 27 November 2015, the ABC reported:

Residents of the small Hunter Valley community of Bulga have lost their battle against a controversial mine expansion, with the project given final approval.The Mount Thorley Warkworth project has been the subject of a long-running war between mining giant Rio Tinto and the residents of Bulga.
The Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) today approved the mine's expansion which will see the life of the mine extended by more than 20 years.
The proposal will involve the creation of an open cut super pit near the village of Bulga, to extract hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal.

Whitehaven AGM protest

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 07:18:00 +0000

Whitehaven Coal held it's AGM in Sydney today, and this is what greeted the board and shareholders as they arrived: a reminder that as Whitehaven's share price continues to tumble, coal is a bad investment!

Whitehaven and its controversial Maules Creek coal mine project has long been a target of protest due to the severity of the mine's impacts on Indigenous sacred sites, the Leard State Forest and its endangered flora and fauna, the local farming community, and the climate.
30 October 2015
text & images: Land Water Future

Battle for Bylong

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 08:01:00 +0000

On the Battle for Bylong weekend of 24-5 October, as well as entertainment in the Bylong sports ground there were highly informative tours of the Bylong valley with Craig Shaw and Nell Schofield who each spoke about about Kepco's plans to mine the Bylong Valley and thereby destroy a community and highly developed and unique agricultural area, as well as contribute to climate change.

FIVE YEARS LATER

Craig Shaw leading a tour. image: Battle for Bylong

In memory of George Bender

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 07:41:00 +0000

Protest at Origin Energy AGM in Martin Place, Sydney, in memory of George Bender, the NSW farmer who took his own life after a long struggle to stop CSG companies mining his land. Image: land Water Future

Listen to Dr Helen Redmond explaining the health effects of fracking.

PAC Hearing in Singleton - Rio Tinto vs Bulga

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 21:12:00 +0000

WRVAP attended the NSW Planning Assessment Commission hearing on 30 June and 1 July 2015 in the Hunter Valley town of Singleton to hear community response to Rio Tinto's proposed expansion of its open cut mine in the form of its Warkworth and Mt Thorley 'Continuation Projects'. The audience was packed, and included many who must have rushed straight there from work without having time to remove their orange high vis jackets, and which incidentally had the effect of showing that some locals are employed by the Rio Tinto mine.

PAC Hearing audience, Singleton 30 June 2015. Ph Kate Ausburn

There were nearly two days of 5-minute responses to the proposal to expand the Rio Tinto open cut mine. The PAC heard about the contribution this expansion will make to climate change through the burning of more coal, the impact on traditional owners' responsibility to care for the land, and other damage it will do to the surrounding land, including to rare and unique ecosystems and economic viability of farm businesses. WRVAP contributed two responses—by David Watson and Margaret Roberts.

Uncle Kevin Taggart giving his response to the proposed Rio Tinto expansion. Ph Kate Ausburn

Visit to BULGA

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Tue, 26 May 2015 10:34:00 +0000

On May 25 WRVAP travelled with the NSW community collective, Our Land Our Water Our Future, to Bulga to find out first hand the nature of the threat Rio Tinto is posing to the town and the land. We were given an invaluable tour of the town and area and the opportunity to meet and hear traditional custodians of the land including Wonnarua elder Uncle Kevin Taggart, as well as Bulga residents speak about the impact of the Rio Tinto mining and expansion.

Uncle Kevin Taggart, Wonnarua elder who spoke about the land being destroyed by the Rio Tinto mine in the background. Photo David Watson

As part of its campaign against an open-cut coalmine expansion, Our Land Our Water Our Future has funded and produced this video profiling Uncle Kevin. He and other custodians and Bulga residents, have been fighting for more than five years to stop the expansion by Rio Tinto. They say it will create severe noise and dust pollution, destroy a critically endangered woodland and threaten 110 registered Aboriginal cultural sites. A final decision is expected within weeks.

In the Kandos Scout Hall for Cementa15

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 01:25:00 +0000

The Kandos Scout Hall

see more

The WRVAP Instruments of Democracy performance focuses on the metal lock-on equipment used as 'instruments of democracy' by many insightful and courageous people from all walks of life across NSW. Performed twice-daily during Cementa15, it is a 5 minute performance that bears witness to the non-violent direct action against open cut and coal seam gas mining that is spreading across NSW.

see more on Cementa15 site

Instruments of Democracy also included individual works by members of the WRVAP:

L-R: Suzanne Bartos; David Watson; Noelene Lucas & Juliet Fowler Smith
with cardboard lock-ons in the centre

L: Suzanne Bartos, centre + top: David Watson; R: Noelene Lucas

David Watson Checkout + Ransom Note (with Denise Corrigan)
(powerpoint on screen), Australian Navigators
(photographs) with performance images in front

Noelene Lucas Death by Coal video, with blackboard drawing behind
and performance objects in front

Juliet Fowler Smith Barking Owls and Weeping Woodlands
with performance object in front

performance metal lock-ons

top: David Watson Koala Diplomacy (2015) prayer flags;
L: Juliet Fowler Smith; R: Toni Warburton

front: cardboard performance objects; centre floor: Margaret Roberts;
top R:Toni Warburton AgitPots H2O (2015) clay and ceramic

Margaret Roberts Life4Coal piled tuille cut-outs of
threatened species. photo Jessica Maurer

Sue Callanan Breath by Degrees (2015) coal, felt
photo Jessica Maurer

Suzanne Bartos Another Meeting Pool (after Merlyn Skipper) puppets

photos by David Watson except where otherwise stated

and thankyou Fleur for your wonderful images and commentary on Sixtoeight.net

Instruments of Democracy at Cementa15

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 06:47:00 +0000

DOWNLOAD CATALOGUE PDF

The Williams River Valley Artists’ Project will present Instruments of Democracy in Cementa15 at the Kandos Scout Hall, open 10am to 4pm, 9–12 April 2015

At 10am and 2pm each day WRVAP’s project is animated by Instruments of Democracy, a performance work that takes on the role of witness to non-violent direct action. The piece has been developed over six months through workshopping our responses to the courage, ingenuity, discipline and stamina of environmental activists—from all walks of life—who oppose the terrible impacts of open-cut and long wall coal mining, and CSG/fracking. Vast environmental destruction is wreaked by large corporations that do not have the right to misuse, contaminate and deplete our ground water, destroy forests and natural habitats, and fray the social fabric of farming communities. When government fails, people act: urgent concern about the future is driving a new form of democracy. Instruments of Democracy is inspired by this development, especially by the the art-like actions using lock-on devices that we witnessed in the Leard, Newcastle and Gloucester blockades. It was also prompted by a performance that also bears witness—An Immaterial Retrospective of the Venice Biennale by Alexandra Pirici & Manuel Pelmuș—that was seen by WRVAP artists in Venice in 2013.

Alongside the collaborative Instruments of Democracy performance, there are individual artworks by WRVAP artists:

•Suzanne Bartos Another Meeting Pool (after Merlyn Skipper) (2015) puppets

• Neil Berecry-Brown Social Licence (2013) text

• Sue Callanan Breath by Degrees (2015) coal, felt

• Juliet Fowler Smith Barking Owls and Weeping Woodlands (2015) drawing on paper, mixed media

• Noelene Lucas Death by Coal (2015) video

• Margaret Roberts Life 4 Coal (2015) floor cut-outs

• Toni Warburton AgitPots H2O (2015) clay and ceramic

• David Watson Australian Navigators (2015) photographs, Koala Diplomacy (2015) prayer flags, Checkout + Ransom Note (with Denise Corrigan) (2013) powerpoint

WVRAP would like to acknowledge and thank the Rev Peter Green and Silver Street Baptist Mission Marrickville for providing access to facilities to help us develop this project.

At the Gloucester blockade

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 02:14:00 +0000

Juliet and Noelene at Gloucester yesterday

Instruments of Democracy planning

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 04:30:00 +0000

On Saturday we met at Mangrove Mountain to discuss our promised coal and CSG contribution to Cementa 15. We can see that science and health professionals have identified serious problems with the radical new forms of coal and gas mining that are spreading across NSW. We can also see that in the face of government inaction about these growing problems, an urgent sense of community concern for the future is spreading like a new form of democracy. Consequently we plan our contribution to Cementa 15 as Instruments of Democracy, inspired as much by artworks such as An Immaterial Retrospective of the Venice Biennale as by the art-like actions we have witnessed in the Leard, Newcastle and Gloucester blockades.

ActUp 6 at Camp Wando - Release the Bats

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 03:01:00 +0000

Learning to address the problem of coal in non-violent direct action workshops and actions at Act Up 6, Release the Bats, at Camp Wando, Maules Creek, 1-3 November.

Protest at Whitehaven AGM

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 01:02:00 +0000

For the polite protest outside Whitehaven AGM against Whitehaven's rude destruction of the Leard State Forest, protesters are asked to wear red and purple, the colours that weather charts are starting to use to forecast the 40+ degree temperatures that are becoming the norm each summer now.

David and Margaret colour coordinated against Whitehaven's promise of No Future

Pacific Climate Warriors Flotilla, Newcastle Harbour

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 19:24:00 +0000

Yesterday WRVAP artist David Watson witnessed and participated in We are not drowning – we are fighting!, the Pacific Climate Warriors Flotilla on Newcastle Harbour. see more

Mikaele Maiava from Tokelau

paddling partners - Caitlin Rawding (Australian Youth Climate Coalition) and David

Climate Warrior George Nacewa from Fiji with a message for the current Australian government

Leardblockade Shenanigans

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 12:06:00 +0000

We learned a lot from the #leardblockade shenanigans and hope to be back for more.

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 11:52:00 +0000

http://www.standwithjono.org/

LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND Opened by NSW Greens MP Jamie Parker

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 10:16:00 +0000

Opening of LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND

by Jamie Parker MP (left with chocolate frog )

with Juliet Fowler Smith WRVAP founder (right))

David Watson, artist and chief editor of The Stuttering Frog,

introducing Sharyn Munro

Sharyn Munro, author of Rich Land, Wasteland

The Stuttering Frog #2

The title of this exhibition is taken from a popular song, a version of which you can see and hear here

LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND - the artwork

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 10:58:00 +0000

LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND at Articulate project space

David Watson Checkout + Ransom Note (with Denise Corrigan)

2013 powerpoint

David Watson Mining Rash [The Drip] 2013

inkjet print on aluminium

Juliet Fowler Smith The Area of Affectation 2013

installation, table, dowel, seats & found objects

Margaret Roberts Titled 2013

ply, hinges, live space/visitor-interaction

Noelene Lucas, Rivers of Coal 2013 3-channel HD video

Christine McMillan Sludge 2013

coal sludge in snow-domes on shelf

Sue Callanan Going, Going, Gone 2013

hessian bags, stencil paint,coal, wood, lights

Ian Milliss Viburnum with Coal 2013 inkjet print

Noelene Lucas Living with Coal 2013 single-channel HD video

above Toni Warburton coal clay water wood - some processes and relationships 2013.

People are invited to submit words, images, patterns, marks from which the artist

can select to draw onto clay beakers. Beakers will be glazed, fired and available

for sale for $30.00 each on Sunday 1^st December.

Neil Berecry-Brown Social Licence 2013 inkjet print

David Watson Fuse 1:100,000 maps showing proposed 2014 walk

following power grid from Rozelle to Hunter valley source

Ralph Snowball New Lambton pit head, Adamstown 1897

inkjet print (2013) from an original Ralph Snowball glass negative,

courtesy Norm Barney Photographic Collection,University of Newcastle

photos Chris Ward and Margaret Roberts

The Stuttering Frog is back in the Hunter

noreply@blogger.com (WRV Artists' Project) — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 09:59:00 +0000

Delivering The Stuttering Frog #2 in the Hunter region:

left: David Watson with The Stuttering Frog,

centre: Wendy Bowman at 'Rosedale' in Camberwell

right: Sue Callanan, Singleton alumna