Joan Ross

Advertisements pervade our lives and our disconnection with nature is like a ravine; narrow and eroded.

Let’s party like its 1815 is imbued with references–some subtle, some not so– whilst critiquing Australian colonisation and its legacies (or rather, false discoveries.) “I see Australian colonisation as a car crash; in slow motion we watch the lack of regard and insensitivity– the long-drawn-out slide towards an inevitable crumpled heap. We saw it happening, but we couldn’t stop it, now it’s left for us to clean up.“

Penetrating the colonial canvas, Ross leaves us to watch a tableau of greed. The ultimate separation from nature: self-interest, lack of care, possession, ownership, mansions, silverware, violent festivities toasting over ‘their land’; blow flies, bees, celebratory fireworks over a bleak horizon; balloons, lavish curtains, fake advertisements for leaf blowers and perfume; native-non-native plants pollinating with themselves, flowers with the heads of colonists/aliens; security cameras, butterflies, superiority, willy-willies spitting out leather lounges, tv’s, lightbulbs, happy couple figurines, pianos, vases, paintings, oh my!
All the trappings spinning, leaving us upside down, looking in a series of incoherent bursts while a Chesterfield lounge and a mansion sink into the earths nethers. Back to nature, a return to dirt, as it was–as it should be.

We set this table.