SPIRITOFTHEPILBARA
Celebrating WA’s rugged outback
How many ways are there to tell stories about a place,
especially a place as vast as the Pilbara? Perhaps there
are as many ways as there are people, for every landscape
can hold a different story for each person, and every
experience is perceived through individual eyes. To tell
us about an initiative which intends to shed light on the
inspirational nature of Western Australia’s north-west
region is FORM Executive Director, Lynda Dorrington.
The vast Pilbara region is awe-inspiring – from
its incredible size of more than 500,000 square
kilometres to its isolated, rugged beauty with a
natural backdrop of earth the colours of Indian
spices. It is also a region of economic potency
as a central hub for the resources industry. Yet
despite its economic importance and breathtaking,
monumental landscape, the Pilbara is relatively
unknown outside of Western Australia in
comparison to its sister regions such as the
Kimberley and central Australia.
The Pilbara Project
,
a FORM initiative proudly
supported by Principal Partner BHP Billiton, aims
to make this iconic region more visible through a
long-term cultural program which engages leading
creative practitioners and thinkers to re-imagine
and reinterpret this landscape. Since the project
commenced in 2010, a number of artists have
travelled throughout the Pilbara by helicopter and
four-wheel drive, venturing into the inaccessible
and remote regions, from the far reaches of
Western Desert country to the small coastal town
of Onslow.
In the first stage of
The Pilbara Project
,
William
L Fox (Director, Centre for Art and Environment
at the Nevada Museum of Art), writer Barry
Lopez, artist Larry Mitchell and photographers
Christian Fletcher, Peter Eastway, Dr Les Walkling
and Tony Hewitt, embarked on a year-long
creative investigation through the Pilbara. Their
observations have been presented in a series of
exhibitions, publications, curated website and
other public forums, revealing the Pilbara’s hidden
majesty – from rare geological formations to its
multi-hued sweeping plains and skies.
This first series of
The Pilbara Project
is themed
around place and its relationship with industry.
The show will visually consider the constant state
of interconnection between the land, industry
and cultures of the Pilbara which simultaneously
depend upon and conflict with each other, often in
volatile relationships and at times both productive
and destructive. Featuring images of trains, iron
ore and salt mines as well as construction, the
works also consider this theme more broadly.
‘
Port Hedland’ by Simon Phelps
LYNDA DORRINGTON
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
FORM
MINESITE 2012
•
127