It’s 2nd February and I’m halfway done with my second day Down Under. The past couple days have been moderately tiring, given the immense amount of travel and my 13 hour layover in LAX. But despite my fatigue I have managed to engage in some pretty decent adventures so far.
After running ( 3 Km!), stuffing my face, and checking out, I made my way to the hotel for my program’s orientation. It was too early to check in, but the program coordinators were kind enough to watch over my bags while I went about my merry way and explored the city. So I left my bags with the coordinators and sought out a cozy seat in the lobby to do some much needed Skyping. I talked to my mom and to my friend Hailey for about 45 minutes and then departed from my hotel to do some exploring.
Cairns Regional Gallery
For my first stop I found my way to Cairns Regional Gallery. I had originally intended to view a gallery exhibiting a collection of Aboriginal Art, but I hadn’t realized that they weren’t open until later when I made my plans. (Later, I would find out that the galley was a private gallery whose purpose was purely to sell. Although that’s fine and wonderful, that’s not quite the academic experience I was seeking.)
It costs me about 5$AUS (about $3.80 American) to get into the gallery space. Once I was inside a wonderful woman named Beck assisted me in where to find the lift and the stairs to go up and see the Second floor and Loft galleries. I didn’t realize at first, but in order to get to the stairs to read the other galleries you needed to go through the first exhibition.
Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’ : From Book to Film
The first exhibition was Shaun Tan’s ‘The Lost Thing’ which is focused on the process of turning a Melbourne-based artist’ book into an animated film. This exhibition made my heart sing and was so well done that it almost drove me to tears of happiness. There were multimedia centers around the exhibition space with video clips about the making of the film. Various pipes were placed around the exhibition that made sounds as if they were above a subway grate and if you got close to them you could hear jingle bells. It was a thoroughly well crafted experience and I will probably make my way back before leaving Cairns this week.
Land and People
The second exhibition space was the Land and People exhibition, featuring artwork by artists from Asia Pacific “whose work explores the relationships between nature and People.” All of the work in the exhibition was video and performance based and they all used very different approaches to describing their relationship to land and sea and how that is impacted by contemporary culture.
One of my favorite pieces in this work was a large video projection of a work by Taiwanese Charwei Tsai named Lanyu- Three Stories (2012). This work was showing three different stories regarding the relationship a native group from Lanyu Island, Taiwan has with the ocean. The first story has a man talking about the impacts of nuclear power plants on their water, the other two document the rituals this group has in calling to and performing or the ocean. The aesthetic and the content of Charwei’s work reminds me of the work done by Rebecca Belmoore who also uses her video and performance works to comment on First Nations people of Canada and their relationship to the land.
Esplanade
After I had made my way through the gallery space twice, I started to had back to the hotel where I was staying. At one point, I switched crosswalks thinking it would save me some time and then stumbled upon a swimming area at Cairns Esplanade. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go swimming, but I did wade around in the pools for a short while and observed all the people around me swimming. It was incredibly peaceful and later this week I intend to find some people to go with so I can fully experience the Esplanade.
Once I had finished splashing about in the swimming area I followed a paved path around the wharf and back to my hotel where I waited a bit, hoping to eventually meet up with my new roommate. As I waited I worked on scholarship applications and talked a bit more to some friends back home until I got hungry and venture out again to get a small chicken meat pie from Pie Face, a little pie shop down the strip. In a little while I will head downstairs for orientation, hopefully my roommate shows up at some point.
Until Next Time…