Thursday Jan 18, 2024
Environmental art’s vital contribution to protect nature and climate stability
GUEST: Jill Sampson - visual artist, Bimblebox Art Project coordinator and the curator of Bimblebox 153 Birds. Jill completed a Fine Arts degree at Queensland College of Art in 2019 extending her previous study at the Sydney Gallery School. She was awarded the 2001 Pata Paris residency, France by Daniel and Anne Pata and the Sydney Gallery School. Jill was a keynote speaker at the Eco Arts Australis 3rd National Conference, Wollongong 2019
Introduction to this episode :
The important capacity of environmental art to engage audiences powerfully with environmental challenges and potential solutions is still being researched. It is already clear however that environmental art’s ability to engage audiences on an emotional as well as purely cognitive level; to be able to reach the heart as well as the head on environmental problems is part of its power.
My guest in this podcast episode, Jill Sampson has developed great expertise in helping harness environmental artistic power to persuade audiences about the dire threats to nature posed by fossil fuel expansion. Art has the capacity to do this in a non-threatening and inspiring manner and in ways which can help develop a motivation in audience members to want to care for and protect the natural world. Helping facilitate such work has been a cornerstone of Jill’s important environmental art advocacy achievements over more than ten years.
A central focus for this interview is based upon Jill’s extended efforts from 2012 onward in helping develop and co-ordinate the ground breaking Bimblebox Art and Bimblebox 153 Birds Projects – along with their influential art, science and nature intersections, artist camps and touring exhibitions.
INTERVIEW TALKING POINTS - with approximate time elapsed in mins.
- Guest foreshadow comment - 0.00
- Generic podcast series introduction. – 0.30
- Current episode and introduction to Jill’s work – 2.17
- How did your passion for the environment start? – 4.10
- Who inspired or mentored you in your work? – 8.27
- How did you get involved with environmental conservation to begin with? – 17.12
- When did you first realise the impact of your work on restoring the environment? – 22.00
- The Bimblebox Art Project and guest’s environmental art achievements – 30.14
- What are some of the challenges you have faced and how did you respond? – 37.36
- How has your work influenced you to keep doing what you do? – 52.24
- Acknowledging the important network of collaborators helping enable Jill’s work – 57.50
- What are you working on currently and what does the work future hold ? – 1.05.20
- Guest short take home message - 1.11.00
- Final advice for next steps in environmental support and advocacy. – 1.16.50
- Thanks to guest, acknowledgements, and episode close. – 1.19.11
- End of episode – 1.21.25
GUEST AND CONTACT DETAILS:
Guest: Jill Sampson
Householders’ Options to Protect the Environment (HOPE Inc. Australia):
Tel: 07 4639 2135 Email: WEB Facebook
Production:
Produced for HOPE Inc. Australia by Andrew Nicholson. This episode recorded in Toowoomba, S.E. Queensland, Australia on 27th November 2023.
Interview questions developed by: Anna Kula-Kaczmarski Incidental Music: James Nicholson
Indigenous artwork for podcast logo: courtesy of Queensland Depart of Justice and Attorney General, Queensland Women's Strategy (2023)
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IDEAS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED OR RELEVANT TO THE DISCUSSION
Note that a full list of URL linked resources do not appear on shownote listings across all podcast platforms. They can always be found in full on the Podbean podcast hosting site and usually on Spotify Podcasts.
THE BIMBLEBOX ART PROJECT
A brilliant portal website on the Bimblebox Art Project (2023) documents many aspects of the inspiring and diverse artistic work undertaken under this project head over the last 10 years plus. With articles on the history of evolution of the projects and depiction of some of the artworks created in the process. There are also details on location and the background story of the Bimblebox Nature Refuge in Queensland, how to attend the artists camps on the Refuge, and much more beside.
EARLY CHILDHOOD NATURE CONNECTEDNESS for establishing lifelong environmental values
Information on Nature Connectedness from one of the leading international research centres.
Author Richard Louve’s work on the problems which can arise from the lack of childhood exposure to nature and the concept of nature deficit disorder.
ECO ARTS AUSTRALIS 3RD NATIONAL CONFERENCE, WOLLONGONG 2019 – conference program
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND CURRENT UNDER RESOURCING in schools and in other sectors. An excellent recent academic paper on the need to ‘reimagine, recreate, and restore’ the crucial importance of environmental education for ecological transformation (University of Exeter UK 2021).
THE FRANKIN RIVER DAM CAMPAIGN 1982 – There is an illustrated article and short video from the National Museum Australia on the importance of this environmental protection campaign both in saving one of Australia’s few remaining wild rivers and in the subsequent formation of the Greens political party in Australia which for a long period was headed by Dr. Bob Brown. See a further entry on Dr Brown under the heading of Jill’s early influences.
There is also an excellent, recent and more in depth ABC Australia podcast series about the Franklin River campaign entitled ‘Saving the Franklin’ available from the ABC and from other platforms such as Apple and Spotify podcasts.
See also the iconic Rock Island Bend photograph of the Franklin River by Peter Dombrovskis as curated by the Museum of Australian Photography. As described by the Museum, the sense of natural world awe created by this photographic art image helped generate a wider spread of public concern with the importance of preserving the river from damming.
HERSTORY CONCEPT
Female gendered rebalance of patriarchy dominated historical narratives Short explanatory article from India (2021).
THE MID-2000S COAL AND CSG LAND GRAB era in Queensland
See Andrew Nicholson’s MSc thesis: The Depiction of Environment Through Art (UNE Armidale 2018). Section 2.5 p. 44.
QUEENSLAND LAND COURT refusal (late 2022) of a coal mining development allowing continued protection of biodiversity in the Bimblebox Nature Refuge in Queensland.
See a legal analysis of the implications of this judgement for future coal mining applications in the Galilee Basin in Queensland and elsewhere (October 2023). And a February 2023 article by the Environmental Defenders Office in Australia on the same topic.
SOLASTALGIA: A 2016 article by concept developer Prof Glenn Albrecht on his notion the emotional and psychological distress experienced as a result of damage to valued natural places. Albrecht argues that we need new concepts and a new vocabulary to help us properly understand what greatly accelerated human induced environmental damage is doing to us mentally as well as physically in the so called Anthropocene era.
SOME OF JILL SAMPSON’S EARLY INFLUENCES
Dr. Bob Brown: and his extensive and diverse history of crucial environmental protection work in Australia and elsewhere.
See this portal website containing a timeline of Bob Brown’s work along with other environmental advocacy resources associated with him.
John Sinclair: and his advocacy for protection of K’gari (Fraser Island).
A reflection by John Sinclair on his lifelong love for K’gari (Fraser Island) and its importance as a unique place in nature. Listed as taken from the Fraser Island Defenders Organisation – FIDO. And also see FINIA – the Natural Integrity Alliance for K’gari with, inter alia, information about the Butchulla people, the First Nations traditional owners of the island.
Judith Wright: and her work as a visionary environmental and social justice activist poet and writer.
A short introductory article on the importance of Wright’s work.
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