1996

Press Rlease:
We would like to invite you to contribute to this upcoming event which aims to bring critical focus to important contemporary issues related to land-use, eco-thics and natural history. Australian artist Neil Berecry maintains a primarily non-exhibition practice and therfore is using the OR Gallery as a location ofr activities in of inquiry, research, and exchange. You are welcome to present existing projects, documentation, readings / story-telling, develop ideas, contributed to conversation and partake in variety of emibibings. Your participation may be made over the four weeks or during the Special Events. We are open to suggestions and encourage creative input.

The centreal focus within the gallery is a large Round Table form which spiral the activities, both speculative and concrete, wih an aim to provoke social and cultural change. You may take part in a Fax exchange between historic sites in Sydney and Vancouver which links traces of the 19th century with contemporary ideas, to be produced as a limited edition books. We are also seeking participants in an international exchange which is investigating issues of genetic diversity and gene manipulation and currently we are trying to find insects to test recipes as a way of further addressing food issues.

Berecry has stated:“I will be attempting to read the tea leaves of the past and trace the fossilised footsteps of former trackers of ‘untruth’. There will be occasions for the telling of tales around table; of voyages, discoveries, recollections. Art will be there too – who knows?”

The OR Gallery publication will be a set of ‘field notes’; a culmination of the events contributions and processes. These notes will also be included as an insert into >GAP<, the Australian publication of Synapse Art Initiatives of which Neil Berecry is the Co-ordinator.

Berecry developed an evolving installation which sighted the gallery as an interactive venue for the investigation of land use, eco-ethics and natural history. A founder of Synapse Art Initiatives, an Australian artist collective which stresses non-exhibition practices, Berecry set up a fax exchange with this collective from an office he staffed in the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. Gallery goers became involved in round table discussions with the artist and Australian participants and they and other artists were invited to install work in the gallery during the course of the show.