BLEED Reference Group Works
– The Island by Joel Spring

In 1774 Captain James Cook charted an island located between what is now called New Caledonia and the Queensland coast, using it as a navigational point to direct the course of his voyage to the place now known as Australia. Sandy Island was drawn and redrawn in maps and reproduced in digital charts until 2014 when it was officially Undiscovered.

This fictional object is both the site and the diagram used to express a series of ideas and themes the stem from the BLEED reference experience, as artist Joel Spring tells a story of a fictional island, exploring how colonialism, surveillance networks and bodies arrive on the beach.

Tracing the ways processes of maintenance and restoration ensure the literal uploading and copying of colonial infrastructures to the internet, Spring explores narratives of resistance and protest, alongside others of mass surveillance and extractive practices to demonstrate that the ability to narrate and power to block other narratives is very important. Forcing those to overhear and listen in. Colonialism places strict limitations of resource acquisition for communities – if we understand ‘hearing’ to be a resource – this too is operational in colonisation.

The BLEED ECHO Reference Group projects are original artworks responding to and ricocheting from the five artist projects and curatorial conversations of BLEED.

Premiere status

World Premiere

Presented by

• Presented by Arts Houseand Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of BLEED 2020

Artistic Credits

• Lead artist: Joel Spring
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• With respect to an ongoing process attempting to articulate a language of resistance within particular academic conventions. The artist has chosen to only reference those seen as key to the conceptual development of the work at large. to offer a different chain of information.
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• In Order of appearance:
• Albert Namatjira (1955) Glen Helen Gorge from the south looking north, National Gallery of Australia, Namatjira Legacy Trust
  
  Dorothy Napangardi (2004) Sandhills, Museum of Contemporary Art
  
  Basically Black (1973) writ. Jim Crawford, Ken Horler, John O’Grady, Gary Foley and Bob Maza.dir. Nicolas R. Parsons. perf. Aileen Corpus, Bindi Williams, Zac Martin, Gary Foley, Bob Maza. ABC
  
  Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2011) Bodies That Matter: Performing White Possession on the Beach. American Indian Culture and Research Journal: 2011, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 57-72.

Supported by

• BLEED is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, City of Campbelltown through Campbelltown Arts Centre and City of Melbourne through Arts House.