Issue 35: Space
Diego Bonetto, Lucas Ihlein, Ian Milliss from Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation (KSCA)
Casula Commons
2017-18
Rezoning Proposal to Liverpool City Council
This proposal is to rezone former Casula Golf Course (currently public recreation land under jurisdiction of Liverpool City Council, and managed by Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre) to a “Commons” (as per NSW Government Commons Management Act 1989 No 13).
“The commons” is a concept which relates to systems of human organisation in which resources are held “in common” (ie, not owned privately or alienable).
Central to the contemporary significance of the commons is the notion of community self-organisation, and a move away from the commercial exploitation of knowledge or real estate as a commodity.
Diego Bonetto is a multimedia practitioner dedicated to enabling convivial conversations around belonging, sustainability and agency. Through environmental art campaigns such as WeedyConnection, Wild Stories and Wild Food Map he has shared insights into edible and medicinal wild plants in Australia and fostered culturally aware interpretations of landscape. Bonetto regularly conducts workshops, foraging tours and performances to reframe environmental identity and stewardship, and collaborates extensively with chefs, dancers, media art practitioners, Journalists and academics, craft workers, herbalists, brewers, educators, landowners and elders of many ethnicities. Exhibitions and commissions have included Foodfight (a C3West commission in partnership with the MCA and Liverpool Council, Sydney, 2016); Time_Place_Space: Nomad (2014, Performance Space Sydney/ArtsHouse Melbourne); The Rocks Windmill, Sydney (2013, workshops and public sculpture); Wild Stories (2 years of workshops and a solo show, Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, 2012); and State of the Arts (group exhibition, Italian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2011). Bonetto is also a core member of Big Fag Press, where he provides mentorship to emerging artists and supports Sydney’s print culture through workshops and exhibitions. Diego has been featured in a substantial amount of media including articles on Marie Claire, GQ Australia, Lonely Planet, SMH, ABC Radio and TV and SBS Radio and TV.
Ian Milliss began exhibiting in 1968 as the youngest member of Central Street Gallery. By 1971 his early conceptualism developed into a practice based on cultural activism working with community and political groups rather than the art market. The cultural issues he has worked with include green bans, prisons, unionism, artists rights, sustainable farming, community media and arts programmes, heritage and conservation and climate change. He has worked as a media and IT consultant for trade unions, business and government and has used an extensive range of media, only some of which are conventionally regarded as art, from painting and installation to publishing and online media. In the last two years he has exhibited in: a solo survey exhibition at Artspace; a joint exhibition with Lucas Ihlein at the Art Gallery of NSW about PA Yeomans sustainable farming innovations; a joint exhibition with Vernon Treweeke at Macquarie University Gallery; in group shows ranging from cementa 2013, Monash University’s Art As A Verb to the Redfern Biennale 2014. He has written for Art Monthly Australia, Artlink, Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, RealTime Arts.
Writings and images can be found at http://milliss.com, the Yeomans Project is at http://yeomansproject.com and his Cementa 2015 work The Kandos Red Book is at http://kandosredbook.com.
Lucas Ihlein is an Australia Council for the Arts Fellow in Emerging and Experimental Arts (2016-18). Since 2010 his work has focused on the links between art and agriculture. Major recent projects include The Yeomans Project (with Ian Milliss) (2011-14) at Art Gallery of NSW and ACCA; and Guangzhou Delta Haiku (2016) at Observation Society (China) and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Sydney). He is currently working on Sugar vs the Reef?, a collaboration between artists and sugarcane farmers in Mackay, Queensland, for which he was awarded a DECRA research fellowship from the Australian Research Council. He has a PhD in creative arts from Deakin University (2011), and now works as an artist-researcher at University of Wollongong.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.