Noelene Lucas

Birds - A Love Story | 2024

Nolene Lucas, photo Alex Wisser
Birds - A Love Story. @ Scout Hall
Birds - A Love Story’ is a multi-screen video installation which explores the counterpoint between the birds we know and love and their precarious environmental condition. The work seeks to explore & highlight the threats to our planet as exemplified in the Kandos region & at the same time to look at where joy and hope reside. Most of us have a bird story, people befriend and feed wild birds, go to the bush have their spirits lifted by seeing and hearing birds. During the residencies I engaged in bird conversations with local community members and filmed the birds of Kandos.

bio:

Dr Noelene Lucas is a Sydney-based video and installation artist with a background in sculpture. Formerly, Noelene was head of the Sculpture Department at the University of Western Sydney. She is a writer and independent curator who worked in Japan, Thailand, USA, Germany, and Finland. She has exhibited in major exhibitions in Australia, Europe and Asia including the National Gallery of Bangkok, Art Gallery of NSW, and National Gallery of Victoria. She was awarded major Australia Council Grants, two AsiaLink residencies in Thailand and two Australia Council Tokyo residencies. These residencies deeply affected her life, art practice and created the foundation for her PhD. Part of Noelene’s video practice is with the Longford Project (with Anna Gibbs, Liz Day and Julie Gough) where she traces her ancestral ties to Longford, Tasmania, linking her family history and Tasmania’s fraught and hidden history.

statement:

For decades I have been working with what I consider to be the key issue of our time, the climate crisis. Central to the work are investigations of the land from both environmental and historical perspectives; land, avian life, water quality and the things we overlook in the passage of our daily lives are key. Crucial to these concerns are key Buddhist concepts and my background in sculpture and sculptural installations. Whether I make sculptural forms or video, the interconnection of elements within the installations are fundamental to my artistic practice. In this way, the interconnection of elements serves not only as a formal device but also as an indicator for the interconnectedness of all life. As viewers navigate the space, they become active participants in the work, experiencing the interconnectedness of the work, the space and themselves.

Materials | video installation
Location | Scout Hall
a cementa background pic
Nolene Lucas, photo Alex Wisser
2024 Artists