Ebb and Flow

CRAIG WALSH
Artist, Creative Producer

Australian artist Craig Walsh is renowned internationally for his pioneering approaches to site- responsive installations, sculpture and projection mapping in unconventional sites. Craig is primarily interested in hybrid and site-specific projects and the exploration of alternative contexts for contemporary art and his work remains distinctive for its conceptual underpinnings and deftly woven narrative. Craig’s works have animated natural and built environments and features such as trees, rivers and mountains, as well as public art projects in urban and architectural space.

Over recent years he has extended his site responsive expertise into work with diverse communities, enabling large-scale participation as collaborators in contemporary art projects. Throughout his career Craig has developed and implemented numerous permanent and temporary public artworks, often through community engagement processes. He is also renowned for his site interventions at live events, including iconic works at music and cultural festivals across Australia and internationally. Through recent projects, Craig is developing works that change and evolve over time to provide opportunities for continual community engagement and interaction.

Craig’s work has been shown in several national and international exhibitions, including the Setouchi International Art Festival, Japan; the Gwangju Biennale, Jakarta Biennale XIII, Indonesia; Yokohama International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan; 01SJ Biennale San Jose, California; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and state galleries across Australia. Since 2019 Craig has presented 12 installations of his signature work, Monuments (video portraits projected onto trees) across the USA and has just completed an artist residency at ARTPARK, New York in preparation for a major new work in 2025.

This video projection artwork titled Ebb and Flow, acknowledges this site as being in a state of flux; a constantly changing environment responsive to diverse influences. This is an interventionist public artwork experienced by night which draws focus to the large rock escarpment surrounded opposite the ferry terminal precinct and encompasses the vast urban growth of Parramatta today. The use of digital animation and video projection which is mapped to the rock surface enables a slow transformation which reflects the cultural and physical changes of the land which have influenced our understanding of this place over time.

In consideration of these many changes and in consultation with local Dharug Cultural Knowledge Holders, three primary thematic approaches were established. These are Origins, The Journey and Sitting Together. These themes provided the basis for the content developed in response to this landform and its location on the river in Parramatta.

Origins

This approach looks at deep time and personifies elements that have a direct connection to Dharug ancestral past, tradition, practice, Country and the Dreamtime. This theme provides insight into the places and traditions which form an integral component of this Place, and Dharug people’s personal connection to Country.

Journey

This artwork uses the Dharug totem animal, the eel as a metaphor for the eternal journey. The eel endures many obstacles but continues to adapt and demonstrate resilience. This theme represents journeys through change and talks about colonisation, dispossession, changing cultural landscapes and the continuity of First Nations culture and connection to this place.

Sitting Together

Burramatta has always been a place of intersection; a place where fresh and tidal saltwater ebbs and flows. This approach looks at the people of Parramatta as a collective of human beings and examines people coming together as equals in ways that are not linear or hierarchical, but relational.
Craig Walsh, 2024.

1. Dharug Cultural Custodians
Julie Bukari Webb, Dharug Strategic Management Group
Venessa Possum, Dharug Artist and Curator 
Leanne Tobin, Darug artist and playwright
Justine Coplin, Dharug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation
Corina Norman, DHARUG NGURRA Aboriginal Corporation
Jasmine Seymour, Dharug Language teacher, Pre-Doctoral Fellow Western Sydney University and Lead researcher, 'Bayala: Let's Talk Together' 2022-2024. Raelene Billedo, Dharug Strategic Management Group
Tylah Blunden, Darug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation

2. Steven Thomasson – visual designer
3. Interactive Controls – audio visual supplier
4. LiDAR scan [WYSIWYG]