Field Notes from Care Workers
2020
Curated by Sofie Burgoyne
at Bus Projects
A Care Worker, Dianna Newham
2020
Fluro ink on paper
Series of 14 works, 27.5 x 19.5 cm each
About the project
The following details are from the online show at Bus Projects >
Curated by Sofie Burgoyne
An evolving project: Every Thursday, live online from 5pm
Field Notes from Care Workers is a series of encounters between human and more-than-human beings who consider care as a part of their work. The condition of the encounter is that something remains that can be shared with another. Each Thursday at sunset, this something will go live for you, to think and be with care, as a material and a process. The process runs parallel to a collaborative project titled Gestures of Care between Tasmanian artists Sofie Burgoyne, Wendy Morrow and Tess Campbell who are working with care as a material and as a process.
Field Notes from Care Workers have developed "these resources for care", this is an evolving document, which you are invited to add to.
Week Nine: Thursday 10 September 2020
Zoya spoke with Diana Newham about her dedicated volunteering with the Central Australian Frack Free Alliance (CAFFA), as well as her work in First Nations community development, parenting and curating at the Australian Women’s Museum.
In their two-hour conversation they discussed – at times quite emotionally – the ways in which working with CAFFA is an act of care (for our environment, for Country, for communities, for current and future generations); how CAFFA helps not only Di as an individual, but her family, too, in multiple ways; the various narratives and actions people take in order to cope with being in Mparntwe/Alice Springs with its rising temperatures; the idea of “maintenance as care” and how that relates to environmental activism, parenting and living in Central Australia; how deeply we both care about this place and what we have sacrificed / what we would need to sacrifice to stay here.
This project was assisted through Arts Tasmania by the Minister for the Arts.
Dianna Newham has lived in Central Australia for over two decades, working in Mparntwe/Alice Springs and out on Country in various remote communities. She was the Curator of the Australian Women’s Museum for six years, and now works as a Community Development Officer. She has been a dedicated volunteer for the Central Australian Frack Free Alliance since 2015.
Sofie Burgoyne is a female-identifying dance artist based in nipaluna / Hobart, lutruwita / Tasmania. At present, Sofie moves between the two roles, dancer & choreographer, often performing in the work that she makes. Sofie understands her artistic practice as a form of soft activism that takes inspiration from the natural process of sprouting; sending thought & action beyond oneself, into the environment & spurring activity in another. Sofie prioritises collaboration & cross art-form conversation as processes of leaning into unexpected encounters.
