RESILIENCE IN THE NATURAL WORLD

The artists have approached the theme of resilience from two different perspectives and dimensions (temporal and geographic), unified by the central theme of exploration of the natural world. Elizabeth Cole has explored the resilience displayed by female travellers such as Isabella Bird, Mildred Cable and others in Central Asia between 1890 and 1930. The works consist of diptychs of the traveller and the landscape in which she travelled.

The use of magenta references the colour coding of the Penguin travel series, in recognition of their travel writing. Closer to Melbourne and current time, Melody Spangaro has explored the visual representation of personal experiences and memories of insignificant natural environments. Through exploration of the treatment of abandoned objects, Melody highlights our degradation of the natural landscape, a landscape once as pristine as that explored by the travellers in Elizabeth Cole’s works.