'What I'm focusing on is looking at the destruction, and the commercialisation, and the degradation that has happened from the Snowy Hydro System'
James Tylor and Aidan Hartshorn are a part of the The Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions program.
The Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions is a national, biennial mentorship and exhibition program that pairs emerging Australian First Nations artists and designers with one of eight esteemed industry mentors. Working collaboratively, the mentors each support and guide an emerging artist to create their most ambitious work to date.
Responding to this year’s exhibition theme of My Country, these new works are displayed in a major exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.
'Already friends and professional supports to one another, Nunga (Kaurna Miyurna) and Māori (Te Arawa) man James Tylor identified that this mentorship and exhibition program would be a meaningful space for Aidan Hartshorn, a Walgalu man of the Ngurmal Nation, to develop his modes of making. For this commission, Hartshorn builds upon his master’s research, which considers the implications of the Snowy Mountains Scheme – Australia’s largest hydroelectricity and irrigation complex – which has and continues to be one of the major causes of decimation on his Country. Hartshorn has actively pursued working with new mediums, working with Canberra Glassworks to fabricate sixteen diamond-shaped glass shields to form an installation. Each shield is suspended in space and weighed down by electrical cords that illuminate them. This tension characterises what Hartshorn terms ‘ghost objects’ – the powerful yet burdened presence of these translucent shields speaking to the ways culture has been removed, obscured and misrepresented through colonial forces.'
- Edwina Green and Sophie Prince
