Sally Clarke, Phallic Eye: Anticipation, 2025, video still, 3:30. Details of upcoming exhibition to be announced.
Sally Clarke with contributors Teena McCarthy (recital of her poem Bird Song), Lisa Robinson (recital of Cork Forest Chant), Brenda Factor (chanter), Genoveva Grayson (translation and recital of chant in Spanish) and Jayne Dyer (recording of Porto street noise), Forest Incantations, 2022, 3:33.
Cork Forest, National Arboretum, Canberra Art Biennale 2022. A Localjinni Event curated by Fiona Hooton
Forest Incantations was created for a night walking event curated by Fiona Hooton of Canberra’s Localjinni in 2022 as part of the Canberra Art Biennial. The video is one of a number of artists’ works that responded to Canberra’s 117-year-old cork forest now located in the National Arboretum. I heard, through casual conversation, that someone had stumbled upon a witches’ sabbath being performed in the forest and it intrigued me. I rewrote William Shakespeare’s The Witches Chant to reflect on the establishment and anticipated use of the forest, the original taking of land from First Nation custodians, and native species it had replaced or displaced. The video considers the forest and its geographical and cultural connections: Spain where the original acorns come from; Goya’s black paintings created during the Spanish Inquisition; Portugal, from where the cork harvesters arrive every nine years; and the practice of witchcraft that is reputedly held in the cork forests in the UK, the Imperial power responsible for colonising Australia. While the forest has connections to elsewhere, it occupies a fluid and ever-changing space that now generates its own stories.
Sally Clarke (concept/sound/coordination) and Jacqui Mills (video/editing/effects), Revolving Door, 2017, (video still), 5:16
Revolving Door was created for the exhibition An Act of Showing: Rethinking artist-run initiatives through place, curated by Maria Miranda and Annabelle Lacroix, 2017. The video captures many of the artists who exhibited at AirSpace Projects between January 2014-December 2017.