Forest, 2004
Ephemeral artwork for Sculpture in the Park, Civic Park, Darwin
Forest (2004) consisted of a stand of painted metal boats on bamboo stalks. In this installation the mandorla-shaped boat forms, (previously used in the Scott Creek installation), are presented as ambiguous and de-contextualised, stranded high and dry and ultimately rendered useless except as metaphor. Forest is a flotilla sailing towards a nameless prize always just out of reach. In this way it references the precarious hopes and dreams of refugees who have arrived on Australia’s northern shore only to find imprisonment and despair.
Cath Bowdler 