Getting a yes
A big part of the art work I make deals with the reality that nature in Australia is mistreated AND that work becomes harder because a lot of that mistreatment happens just vast distances from where we live.
It's an interesting thing here is that we have pushed many animals and species out of cities. Where are the Eagles in Melbourne? The Dingoes in Sydney? The sharks in the bay? Where are the quolls?
With the exception of some marine animals and maybe crocodiles, there are very few challenging animals near big centres of population. Inevitably, then, the treatment and lives that those species have in Australia rests on the shoulders of a small sliver of our population: farmers, Indigenous Australians and National Park teams.
One might assume that farmers are often antagonistic towards anything other than what they grow and sell. More often than not that's true.
One might assume that National Parks prioritise conservation. In my experience that is not true. National Parks balance conservation with appeasing rural interests. If a National Park has, say, a noticeable population of Dingoes then farmers whose land touches that park will be angry and demand change. For better or worse, they are local to that area and they vote on local issues there. I don't.
Where this becomes complex is access. If I want to, say, attend a goat muster (where feral goats are corralled and then killed for meat), or try and take a photo of people laying toxic baits to kill dingoes the answer is almost always 'no'. In fact finding people to ask is legitimately hard. Probably less than 10% of the Australian population do anything like this.
But what makes access really hard is how much of a divide there is between urban Australia. At times I feel this is an imagined divided - after all rural Australians do often have a real environmental bend - helping my make the Killing Sink were locals who really told me the true story that the Department couldn't, for legal reasons. At other times it doesn't matter what I think: farmers will assume that I'm a bad actor, there to tell them how to live or what to do. But in reality I'm actually MORE interested in showing urban audiences what our collective decisions and society leads to.
Why place all the responsibility of environmental knowledge and decision making in a small fraction of our country when, really, we all need a resilient and biodiverse ecology? Why allow ourselves in the city to be ignorant? Why pretend we don't, also, owe the world the bare minimum of being informed?
What I struggle with is how to convince rural communities - awash in anti-city, anti-government, pro-conspiracy, isolationist thinking that I'm literally curious and, yes, have an opinion, but am not that interested in trying to change THEIR minds. How many city-living Australians know what a goat muster is? How many know that by allowing the paid-for-hunting of feral animals we, time and time again, see their numbers RISE as rural communities want to make a buck? Happened with rabbits, happens with goats.
My main way of trying to find collaborators is through Facebook groups. There's a HUGE network of interest-specific facebook groups - and often by introducing myself and asking I can get a few people to open some doors. And that's all I need, one or two people. But with the current project I'm working on the issue feels too ingrained, too contentious, too angry to actually find ways to get those doors opened.
The thing is, I don't actually want to depict the individuals. It's not relevant to me that Viv Bosely from White Cliffs uses 1080, I don't care about Bev. I care about the bigger picture: that Bev, like loads of farmers, just keeps doing it. I care that the National Parks team next to Bev also do it. I care that many people can't even picture the animals this is used to control. I don't want to change Bev's mind, I want to change the mind and the empathy of people in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, New York, Paris, Tokyo. Bev, frankly, is not someone I'd photograph, Bev is not someone I want to tease or directly criticise. What I want to criticise is all the thinking, policy, action and ignorance that sits behind a campaign of poison, a culture of exclusion and world's-best extinction rate. Bev and I can share a scone and talk about the weather.
I don't really have a broad point this edition, I don't have much of anything to really drive at, just to say man it's tricky being an artist sometimes: you just want to see someone trap a feral cat (as they well should), but the people that do that assume I'd only want to do that to make them out as villains (I really don't, maybe we're the villain, maybe the cat is - that's an interesting thing to consider).
Take, for example, the poison 1080 - ALL OVER Australia you will see signs telling you 1080 baiting occurs. It is impossible to count how many signs there are - they are everywhere. So what does 1080 look like? A chemical this widespread surely we should be able to picture it? Surely we should know if it's clear, or green, or red, a liquid or a solid? If we're lacing our entire country with this shit how can we not even visualise it? It's a highly controlled substance so I can't just go and buy some (fair enough) - so I'm on a quest to find someone who will let me take a picture of some and there's genuinely a chance I simply won't be able to. It's getting to the point I'm considering taking a poison exam so I can be licensed to buy some, take a photo and then find some way to dispose of it. But I don't really want literal death chemicals sitting in my garage.
As an artist I feel strongly that this should be something we - Australians and people around the world - consider. When we discuss issues around environment and animal control we should be asking ourselves: where is the space for animals? where will we not poison? I think when we have those discussions being able to visualise, to know more of what we discuss, is beneficial. I want to take big, abstract, complex topics and make them more tangible: should we trap this animal to ingest this substance and die in this way? If so, where and when is that ok? if not how do we stop? We can't get to the more directive questions with any sense of nuance without a more holistic understanding of what we're talking about.
Feral horses run rampant in some of Australia's rarest country: alpine areas. They destroy much of the fens, marshes and streams that are the cradle of so much life. The public often riotously objects to the killing of these horses, because it's done via aerial shooting. While the killing is not something I'd celebrate, I'd argue it's necessary. But something about the directness of the action upsets many people. Compared with the people-absent poisoning, the euphemistic 'control' (that means killing) and the less extreme 'trapping', aerial shooting sounds so violent. And, fair enough, it is. But it's a quicker death and a more merciful way to kill enough horses for other animals to bounce back.
The poison is torture. The trap is pain. The control is just less effective shooting with a smattering of trapping, poison and inaction thrown in.
I hope, perhaps naively, that the work I make adds to these discussions a wider view, a sense that poison, for example, may be the least difficult thing to do, but in many ways it's the most cruel. That with Dingoes we may feel sympathy for farm communities - yet where are we all allowing room for these animals? Are we comfortable with an incalculable amount of highly toxic poison being thrown like confetti across THE WHOLE OF OUR COUNTRY? If I asked an expert to estimate how much 1080 poison was used each year the only way they could know would be through suppliers - the numbers are too high and its use too widespread to know any other way. When I asked 'how many dingoes do we kill each year', the world-leading expert told me 'it is impossible to know'. How, I wonder, can we move away from colonial and dominating mindsets if we can't even acknowledge that we kill 10,000 dingoes a year, or maybe 40,000? Who knows? How can we consider if we're comfortable with poison if we don't know that we use 10,000L or maybe 50,000? or maybe 3000L?
The gap between urban and rural Australia results in badly formed arguments, a lackluster public discourse and a slew of misinformation, myth and bullshit. Yet this gap is also something that prevents better communication - it's so entrenched trying to say hello and work side by side (albeit to different ends) is often impossible.
If you know anyone trapping foxes, cats or goats let me know. If you know anyone who uses 1080 (and if they trap they likely to) let me know. I'd love to introduce myself and ask if I can come meet and maybe take some photos. I promise they won't demonise the individual.