‘Spooner Oval: New Harvest – Myee Maze’ by Rosalie Burns. Photo: Cazeil Creative.
What if Forbes’ Spooners Oval was dug up and turned into a garden for bogon moths? That’s one of the provocative idea suggested by Forbes artist Ro Burns.
VISION 20/50 an (im)possible festival is regional arts organisation Arts OutWest’s speculative, hypothetical festival project that positions artists as engineers of an optimistic future. The ambitious nine-month project will wrap up with a public event in Bathurst on Thursday 12 December 2024.
“We tasked regional artists, across multiple arts disciplines, to imagine an artwork that could only be made in the year 2050, and to imagine the world in which that artwork could exist,” explains project director Adam Deusien.
After a series of public workshops and a call for ideas, the nine selected artists participated in a residency weekend facilitated by Deusien and All Tomorrow’s Futures artist and futurist Ana Tiquia.
Ro Burns’ hypothetical work takes us to a future without contact sport, where Forbes’ Spooner Oval is now a pattern of nectarproducing plants that support a bogong moth colony. Her artwork is an annual celebration of the moth’s mass emergence.
“The work challenges the community to consider the unthinkable – the loss of culture, and cultural icons and the re-evaluation of priorities in the face of environmental and social upheaval,” Ms Burns said.
The artists – who normally work across music, painting, conceptual art, photography, weaving, film and theatre – have pushed into new, hybrid artforms with their invented works.
The launch event will include panel discussions, short films and networking. The nine works will be launched at VISION 20/50 an (im)possible festival on Thursday 12 December, from 5.30pm at Keystone 1889 in Bathurst.