A Photographic and Paper Sculpture project

Featuring women from remote shack communities

in North West Tasmania

 

Supported by Big hART, Creative Paper Tasmania,

Women Tasmania, and Burnie City Council

 

Frankie Goodwin, 20 years old, has been mentored by photographer Rick Eaves throughout two of Big hART’s projects based on the North West Coast of Tasmania – Drive In Holiday for Ten Days On The Island 2007, and This Is Living for Burnie Shines 2007 – and is now holding her very first solo exhibition!

In this project she will be weaving together two elements from these previous projects – working with people from shack communities, and intergenerational storytelling through photography and interviewing – in a photographic and paper sculpture exhibition.

Drawing on Big hART’s existing relationships with shack communities in remote areas of Tasmania, the project will travel to Crayfish Creek, Edgecombe Beach, and Trial Harbour. Through a process of interviewing and photography, the project will explore the lives of women of all ages living alternative lifestyles in shack communities and caravans in remote parts of Tasmania. These women will be both participants of the project and subjects of the exhibition.

The project will look at these women as individuals in their own right, but it will also be an intergenerational look at women living together in isolated communities and of a generally low socio-economic demographic.

Given that Frankie is a current artist in residence at Creative Paper Tasmania in Burnie, she is creating a life-size paper caravan and other paper sculptures to exhibit and compliment the photographs and stories gathered.

Frankie will be gaining new skills from several local artists, being mentored by paper sculpture artist Pam Thorne, photographer Rick Eaves, Darren Simpson, Dean Jupp and Jan Marinos in paper-making, and Neil Thorne in design and construction.

The exhibition will be held in the shed next door to Creative Paper Tasmania (East Mill Studios, Old Surrey Road, Burnie), connecting the exhibition with the IAPMA conference and the Burnie Paper Festival. It will be on display from the 21st of March until the 30th of April 2009.

We hope to later develop the exhibition with the purpose of touring it to the shack communities visited as part of the community process!