Parameters

Socially engaged collaborative project with sugarcane farmers, artists, traditional custodians, Australian South Sea Islanders, natural resource managers and community members of Mackay.

Events

1. Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers (July 2017) – held on Simon Mattsson’s farm

Video documentary: Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers

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2. Legume Planting Event (March 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens

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The Legume Song lyrics [PDF file]

3. Seed and Song Planting Event (August 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens

 The Planting Song lyrics [PDF file]

Media Release [PDF file]

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4. Sunflower and Song Harvest Event (November 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens

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The Harvest Song lyrics [PDF file]

Event Flyer [PDF file]

Media release for Sunflower and Song Harvest Event (November 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens [PDF file]

5. Old Ways New Ways Sugarcane Harvest Event (October 2019) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens

The Mackay Tarantella Song lyrics [PDF file] 

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6. Other project images

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Exhibitions

Exhibition catalogue: Sugar vs the Reef? Artspace Mackay, October 2018 – January 2019 [PDF file]

Exhibition flyer: Sugar vs the Reef? Artspace Mackay, October 2018 – January 2019 [JPEG file]

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Blogs

Sugar vs the Reef ? Stories from the canefields of Mackay

WATERSHED – The Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens Land Art Project

Education

Future Leaders Eco-Challenge workshops (in partnership with Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, September 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens

Future Leaders Eco-Challenge workshops (in partnership with Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, March 2019) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens

Social media

Instagram – Watershed Land Art Mackay

Facebook – Watershed – Art Agriculture Conservation Community

Media

ABC Tropical North Radio: (July 2017) [Part 1: MP3] [Part 2: MP3] (August 2018)

ABC Radio Sunflower and Song (November 2018) [MP3 file]

My 105.9fm Indigenous radio 2017, 2018, October 2019 [MP3 file]

Channel 7 Mackay, July 2017 [MP4 file]

Channel 9 Mackay, November 2018

Mackay Daily Mercury newspaper, November 2018

Constellations: Talks across Art, Technology and Science Podcast series, Episode #12, “The Soil”: with Lucas Ihlein, Kim Williams and Simon Mattsson, dLux Media, July 1, 2019 [MP3 file]

Rural Weekly, May 10, 2019; October 14, 2019 [PDF file]

Watershed Land Art Project Information Flyer [PDF file]

The Legume Planting event flyer [PDF file] 

Farmers for Climate Action (FCA) news article 

University of Wollongong, Research Impact Magazine 

Siteworks, Bundanon, 29th September 2018, Panel – Simon Mattson, Lucas Ihlein, Kim Williams + Robbie Buck [MP3 file]

Reports

Soil test results for The Beacon (Watershed Botanic Gardens Land Art Project) [PDF file]

Australia Council for the Arts, 2018-2019 Annual Report [PDF file]

The Beacon Rainfall run-off simulation test [PDF file] 

Related publications

Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, 2019, “Fresh water, salt water: socially engaged art, collaboration and the environment”, Australian Humanities Review (in press) [PDF file]

Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, 2019, “Working and Walking with Waterways”, 100 Atmospheres: Studies in Scale and Wonder (book chapter), Open Humanities Press [PDF file]

Lucas Ihlein, Laura Fisher, Kim Williams, Simon Mattsson, 2018, “Socially Engaged Art and Agriculture: Experimenting with Extension”, Journal of Sustainability Education 17, February 2018 [PDF file]

Laura Fisher, 2017, “Ecologies of Land and Sea and the Rural/Urban Divide in Australia: Sugar vs the Reef? and The Yeomans Project”, Culture and Dialogue 5: 98-130

Fiona Vuibeqa, Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, 2018, catalogue interview, Sugar vs the Reef? exhibition, Artspace Mackay

Proposals

Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, Simon Mattson, John Sweet (Central Queensland Soil Health Systems), 2018. Outline proposal for a partnership with Central Queensland University to establish a demonstration farm in the Pioneer Valley, Mackay [add link to demonstration farm plans] [PDF file] [PDF file] [PDF file]

Kim Williams, 2019. Farmer-to-Farmer mentorship program. A regenerative agriculture demonstration model [PDF file]

Conferences and presentations

Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, Water Futures – Asia Pacific Knowledge Exchange and Transdisciplinary Laboratory, 23-25 February 2017, Melbourne

Kim Williams, H2O: Life and Death, University of Adelaide, 14-16 September, 2017 (an interdisciplinary conference organized by the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice)

Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, Farmer/Artist Collaborations: An Australian Perspective, May 2018, University of California, Santa Barbara

Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, Simon Mattsson, Conversation with Robbie Buck, Siteworks, Bundanon Trust, Illaroo, September 2018

Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, Artists talk, Sugar vs the Reef? exhibition, Artspace Mackay, October 2018