+ urbanart + Summer 2002/03 +

A Melbourne artist and photographer, Jane undertook a residency at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery in December 2001 as part of her RMIT University Masters project. Work created during the residency was exhibited in the Centre for Contemporary Photography Summer Salon in late January 2002, at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery in July and again at the Maroondah Art Gallery in October in the same year. This urbanart exhibition in five city tram shelters during January/February 2003, is supported by the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery and the 2002 Year of the Outback.

Artist Statement
I went to Broken Hill to explore the slippage between the words we use to describe the landscape in which we live and the images we use to advertise to Australia and the world the landscape in which Australians live.

The Australian landscape has been held in the consciousness of the people who have lived in the land for thousands of years. White settlements on the fringes of central Australia have added layers of stories and of memory to the land.

I went to Broken Hill because the city is a particular icon in the Australian psyche. Broken Hill, the Silver City, the birthplace of the 'big Australian' BHP, an insular town, a city-state, an island unto itself in the outback landscape. Broken Hill is the stuff of the white Australian outback mythology? Struggle against the harsh outback environment counterbalanced with the opportunity for tremendous wealth.

When I walked across the plains around Broken Hill for the first time, all these stories? Of oneness with and alienation from the landscape; of pain and joy; of struggle and heartbreak; of triumph and endurance; spiritual and commercial? Scratched at my shins like the saltbush.

It won't be long now.

msjane.com