Forecast installation view, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2024. Artwork - Dianne Jones, Eva Fernandez When you pass through the waters 2023. Digital image. Courtesy of Dianne Jones and Eva Fernandez as presented in Forecast, 2024. © Dianne Jones and Eva Fernandez, 2023. Photo: Louise Coghill.
A new exhibition at The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) brings together art, science and education to deepen human relations with weather in creatively addressing climate change.
Forecast is created through the artist-led curatorial practices of AGWA's Head of Learning and Creativity Research Lilly Blue, and artist-scholar Dr Jo Pollitt from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and ECU's Centre for People, Place and Planet, together with artists Dianne Jones and Eva Fernandez and visitors.
The exhibition presents collaborative photomontage works by artists, Ballardong Noongar woman Dianne Jones, and Eva Fernandez of Spanish heritage.
Forecast installation view, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2024. Artwork - Dianne Jones, Eva Fernandez Sovereign Sisters 2023. Digital image. Courtesy of Dianne Jones and Eva Fernandez as presented in Forecast, 2024. © Dianne Jones and Eva Fernandez, 2023 Photo: Louise Coghill.
These powerful photographic works were developed in response to Staging Weather, an ongoing transdisciplinary project by ECU Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow Dr Jo Pollitt.
In collaboration with the WA Bureau of Meteorology and AGWA, Dr Pollitt merges art, science and education to enrich our connection with weather and creatively tackle the challenges of unstable climate futures.
Dr Pollitt described Forecast as being equal part exhibition, artist studio, retreat, and creative weather station.
"Forecast is a place for feeling, and we encourage audiences of all ages to contribute to the exhibition through contemplating trees as a family, and weather as borderless," she said.
Forecast installation view, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, 2024. Photo: Louise Coghill.
Visitors are invited to contribute to Disappearing Forests by painting evaporating treescapes with water and creating Weather Patterns, a daily changing installation that reflects the movements of currents, atmospheres, and connections.
"These meditative interactions make room for deep listening, attention and care at a time of rising eco-anxiety and climate grief," Dr Pollitt said.
Forecast is free to visit and runs until early February 2025. For more information visit the AGWA website.
Learn more about the research being conducted at ECU's Strategic Research Centre, the Centre for People, Place and Planet.
The Forecast collective acknowledges the people, lands, waterways and skies of Noongar Country where this work was created and continues to emerge each day. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this exhibition space contains images of deceased community members.
