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Fields of Memory

A Sense of Place

29 April – 19 May 2008

An exhibition of photographs, paintings and monotypes by Sarah Willard Gray BCA (Hons) MCA-R Candidate - Faculty of Creative Arts

The Faculty of Creative Arts presents an exhibition by Master of Creative Arts, Research candidate, Sarah Willard Gray.

This exhibition of photographs, paintings and monotypes, on display in the FCA Gallery, officially opens on Thursday 1 May at 12.30pm with Professor Diana Wood Conroy speaking.

The artists’ work involves the use of aerial perspective and ideas that revolve around past events, locations and early colonial history of the Hoskins Nature Reserve and the Bong Bong Common, which is situated on the outskirts of Moss Vale. This area is the home of the Gundungurra people and contains important archaeological artifacts, both Aboriginal and European.

Artist Statement

“A sense of place is not simply the affective response to a particular locale but includes a growing sense of what the place demands of us in our attitudes and actions. The landscape is an important part of Australian national and personal identity and through it we can explore our spiritual and artistic links with both traditional and contemporary attitudes to place.

My ‘sense of place’ relates two locales; Hoskins Nature Reserve, a secluded, quiet place with over one hundred and eleven species of wildlife contained in it and directly opposite is the Bong Bong Common, a 70 acre meadow, that is on view to passing traffic. Both contain the early 19th century colonial history of the Wingecaribee Shire and more importantly this area was the home of the Gundungurra people for over 30,000 years.

These locales were the subject of my thesis and creative work. Permission, by the local Shire Council, to occupy a seat on the Bong Bong Common Management Committee has now enabled me to have a voice in the protection of this place.”

Sarah Willard Gray, 2008

FCA Gallery
Room 112, Building 25
Faculty of Creative Arts
University of Wollongong
Opening Hours: 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday