Taking art off the beaten track // Capper Katzki Project: Man, Machine & Environment
James Capper (UK) and Katzki (Australia) have delivered a combination of sculpture, machinery, technology and filmmaking to celebrate the industrial heritage of Broken Hill. A collaborative project between city, machine and man.
This project is something really new – taking art of the beaten track. Exploring outback horizons, making marks and interacting with the red dirt. Normally art is seen to be in galleries but this project is discovering Broken Hill as a museum without walls.
Why is a project like this important?
“I believe we need art projects that don’t just reach diverse and remote audiences, but are inspired by them. At the heart of the project is the desire to promote the Australian outback as an unrivalled canvas for art making and prompt the public to re-evaluate how they think about ‘the rural’” Says Edward Campbell (Project Curator).
This project have allowed the artist and filmmaker to break new ground and developed their practice. Broken Hill was a new, challenging location using a cross-disciplinary and collaborative approach to working (a first for both artist and filmmaker).
In dialogue with Broken Hill, off the beaten track
From the audience’s perspective, we enabled one-on-one dialogue between Broken Hill and our artists by inviting the community to be involved in the creation process.
The machines walked through town, explored the dramatic Broken Hill landscape and surrounds. The Sculptures are hydraulics systems, the type of things you would walk past on a construction site and not pay any attention to.
Culmination of the project in Sydney
The project will culminate with an exhibition of the works and film at the Biennale of Sydney March 2018; it is here that the story of our outback adventure will be told.
