Design, community art and science come together to imagine a resilient future coastline in an exhibition featuring work by students and staff from The University of Western Australia and community members.
The exhibition Rising Tides: Imagining Coastal Resilience opens in Albany this week and features work by landscape architecture staff and students from the UWA School of Design, alongside artworks by community members from the Great Southern region.
Co-hosted by Associate Professor Natasha Pauli, from UWA’s School of Agriculture and Environment, the event is part of the UWA Oceans Institute’s Better Oceans Program research project to improve coastal resilience through creative methods of community engagement.
“As part of the project, community members were invited to create collages, textile artworks, poems and photographs that tell their stories about the Albany coastline,” Associate Professor Pauli said.
“The exhibition celebrates the social and ecological importance of the coast from Binalup (Middleton Beach) to Emu Point.”
Exhibition was led by Daniel Jan Martin, Liam Mouritz and Sofie Nielsen, from UWA’s School of Design, and features the work of UWA Design consultancy Super Natural and landscape architecture students.
“Our vision is optimistic, we see rising tides as a way of nature leading the way – where the bays, dunes and waters of Binalup connect again and flourish – and the students’ ideas illustrate these values,” Mr Martin said.
“We yarned with Merningar Barduk Elder and UWA Research Fellow Lynette Knapp, her son Dion Cummings and Professor Stephen Hopper, from UWA Albany, who inspired students to think about the future of our coast as tides rise.”
The exhibition will run from Thursday 24 July to Sunday 27 July, 10am to 4pm at Museum of the Great Southern, Residency Road, Albany, as part of the City of Albany’s Maritime Festival. Entry is free, for more information click here.
The research project is funded by the UWA Oceans Institute’s Better Oceans Program and is an endorsed United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development Action.