Yogyakarta 2009
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Ash Keating
Ash
Activate 2750 is my most recent project which continued my investigations into contemporary ecological issues. Since 2002, I have annually undertaken work as a Visual Auditor for my late Mother’s (Pam Keating) waste audit and consultancy company, Sustainable Learning. In this role I assessed the amount of commercial and industrial waste sent to landfill in locations throughout Australia including a number of sites in Western Sydney. This experience highlighted the disregard we, as a culture, have for the environment and informed my art practice. It resulted in a series of performative waste interventions in 2008 including 2020? and Label Land.
2020? was the first project in the series and was presented at the 2008 Next Wave Festival in Melbourne. It was a process based work which used commercial and industrial waste to create an evolving installation that combined theatrical lighting and sound.
Label Land developed out of a residency I undertook in Seoul, Korea. For the project I worked with visual art students to create wearable costumes using discarded branded fabric, the costumes were paraded in a series of public actions throughout Seoul.
For Activate 2750, a total of 10 tonne (or three truck loads) of usable resources were selected and salvaged from the Davis Road Transfer Station over a two week period. This material was used to construct a mountain-like monument to waste outside the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, a deliberate visual affront in Penrith’s key municipal space.
Surrounding the installation were two rings of fencing, a safety fence and a second containment fence, which created a kind of human rat-run that was integrated into the evening performances. The fencing also reinforced the atmosphere of the installation as a kind of apocalyptic zoological habitat.
Processions of costumed performers pushing overflowing trolleys of industrial waste materials were presented over four days. Starting at the Penrith Superstore shopping complex the processions took place in a number of sites including Mulgoa Road, Penrith High Street and the Westfield Penrith Shopping Centre en route to the waste monument.
Performances took place each evening at the Penrith City Cultural Precinct around the waste installation, which was illuminated by industrial spotlights. At the final performance, the colourful figures circled around the monument interacting with the different materials until they merged into their waste habitat.
An integral element of Activate 2750 was working with local artists and performers on the procession costumes and props for the performances – transforming abandoned shopping trolleys into eccentric movable waste machines and creating full-length robes from debris rescued from the transfer station.
Moving on from Activate 2750 to working within The South Project's Yogyakarta gathering, I aim to work together with local Indonesian artisans to develop a new project, which will again respond site specifically to the local environment as well as local and global issues ripe for discussion.
