Dream Palisade 2019 is an expression of how we can all be fortified by hope in light of changing climates and rising sea levels. The work houses buried aspirations, forming a barricade against the incoming tide, wind and rain.
Winner of the Award for Artistic Excellence at the 2019 Strand Ephemera Sculpture Festival, Townsville, Queensland, Judge Bradley Vincent said:
“It is a work that, like the best works, reveals more and more layers the more time you spend with it. We were first struck by its form, the perfect scale and presence for its location and the way it allowed itself to be framed by the its surrounds. It invites the viewer down from the foreshore, onto the beach,”
“Once you are near, you notice the materials used. It speaks beautifully to the history of land art, being made of the very material of its location. This is such a perfect way to talk about environmental issues – here, a message of the need for both action and preparedness.
“Then we see the pillowcases standing in for traditional sandbags. They evoke a feeling of both nostalgia and of familiarity. We can probably all find in there a particular pattern that we ourselves have slept on at some point. In this way, this is a work that speaks to both the environment and the individual, placing each of us firmly in the frame.
“Finally, we returned at night to find gentle lights embedded in the work, casting an inviting glow. It is a truly deserving and timely winner.”
Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge 2017 reveals a largely forgotten world - one some speed past every day. Much of the wildlife on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island have to share their home with speeding steel projectiles. In this documentary we discover what they have to endure to survive.
This film tells the story of the Rosenburg's Goanna, Hooded Plovers, and the Kangaroo Island Kangaroo. It is a true wildlife documentary illustrating wild animals doing wild things.
25 minutes
Awards / Recognition:
Best Independent Production, Green Screen International Film Festival - Eckernförde, Germany.
Gold - Ron Taylor AM ACS Wildlife/Nature Category, Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Official Selection, Wildlife Film Festival Rotterdam - The Netherlands.
Official Selection, Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - New York, U.S.A.
Nominated for Best Documentary & Best Cinematography - South Australian Screen Awards
Nominated for Best Tertiary Documentary, SAE ATOM Awards, Australia.
On the nature of the Familiar explores society’s physical and ideological connection to nature within an urban, domestic context. By taking organic and inorganic waste objects from homes, and re-presenting them with common household scenes, the work seeks to question where ‘nature’ meaningfully resides. For while the natural world is closed off behind doors, curtains and fences, and representations of nature are brought into the home through adornments and motifs, concepts of ‘nature’ are hybridised, abstracted and dislocated from the physical realities of an impacted and disappearing natural environment.
Untitled 2018 is a portrait of desert fire, chronicling the dark nature of this natural phenomenon. This experimental video works explores the intimate and immediate relationship between subject and artist. Filmed over 3 months in the heart of Australia, this visual masterpiece challenges how we perceive fire, and how videographers represent ‘place’ and ‘the wild.’
Official selection at 2018 Fleurieu Film Festival, South Australia
A panel contribution to a possum skin and ochre cloak, made by Carol McGregor and students from Griffith University's Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art as part of the Tastes Like Sunshine exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane. The cloak conveys Indigenous stories and memories of collecting, hunting and sharing traditional food knowledge and resources.
The work was displayed at the Museum of Brisbane in November 2017.
Dom and Sam have worked both independently and together, planning, delivering, project managing and facilitating various youth/art workshops on remote communities across central Australia.
Workshops included multi-media production, song-writing, music recording and assisting with cultural events.
Walking Story has worked with not-for-profit organisations to create, facilitate and project manage micro-enterprise initiatives within remote Aboriginal communities across the Katherine and Central Australian regions. These projects involved working collaboratively and meaningfully with communities to development community-driven, grass-roots enterprise initiatives that were able to incorporate and support cultural practices, knowledges, and ways of doing things, while engaging in broader, mainstream economic systems.
One of two site specific sound installation / performance works made in collaboration with Tom Blake (momo doto) for the 2018 Queenstown Unconformity Festival.
A Score to Scratch the Surface (Opening Scene) takes participants on journey in which Queenstown’s myths and realities slowly merge with the landscape. Starting in the dress circle of the 1930s Paragon cinema and finishing at a table in the foyer cafe, A Score to Scratch the Surface (Opening Scene) is a roaming sound work composed of local field recordings, archival sounds and fragments of stories reflecting the diverse threads that link people to an environment.
Walking Story’s methodology and approach to projects includes a strong foundation in research. This research can include more conventional academic text and data-based enquiry, as well as the knowledges generated through art, performance, interaction and relational thinking. Walking Story’s research is also strongly informed by traditional Aboriginal ontologies—ways of knowing, being and doing that while ancient in their connections, are at the forefront of interdisciplinary and concept-based approaches.
Dom and Sam have engaged with researched projects across Australia, and within various fields.
Sam has completed a research masters from the University of Otago’s Science Communication Centre (NZ), on the survival of wildlife cinematography as a craft. Dom’s higher degree research through Griffith University (Queensland College of Art) focused upon how Aboriginal ontologies can be applied within culturally contested notions of place, and within transient and dislocated communities.
A collage commissioned by the Queensland State Archives. The work looks at the varied histories of the site of the Old Windmill, Springhill, that overlooks the Brisbane CBD - from a place of convict punishment, grain grinding, execution, surveying, time-keeping, observation and signalling, radio and telephony research, to tourism. These histories are layered on top of, and were made possible by the displacement of the traditional Aboriginal owners. The work acknowledges the ongoing sovereignty of Aboriginal people in the Brisbane region, and explores the windmill as an expression of colonial advancement, ideologies and relationships to land.
Since 2009 Sam has worked as a specialist wildlife cinematographer, as well as a freelance camera operator across a variety of genres, including involvement in numerous projects that reached international, national and local audiences.
As a News and Current Affairs camera operator/editor based in Central Australia he shot and edited over 200 stories for the ABC. Programs include 7PM news, 730 (Stateline), Landline, Lateline, ABC News 24.
Samuel has also worked on programmes for Message Stick, Imparja, Discovery (Animal Planet), corporate clients, community television, art installations, local/State Government, and many other platforms.
Awards / Recognition:
Gold – Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge - Ron Taylor ACM Wildlife Category – 2017 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Best Cinematography (nomination) - Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge - 2018 MRC's South Australian Screen Awards
Silver - Cliff Rescue - Syd Wood ACS Local/Regional News Category, 2014 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Bronze - Hypocrite - Dan the Underdog - Music Clips Category, 2014 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Treat ‘em Green, Keep ‘em Keen used multimedia and live music as a platform to communicate messages about the Central Australian environment to the community and public. A feature artist in the 2009 Alice Desert Festival, Samuel filmed a wildlife/landscape archive of the West MacDonnell Ranges, and projected this footage as part of a live music gig at the Araluen Centre. Furthermore, projected/VJ'd the footage at the opening of the festival at Anzac Oval.
Dom and Sam have been individually and collectively involved in various music and sound production projects across Australia and New Zealand.
Original roots/folk/blues/country music and songwriting includes poetic and political responses to the environment, people and societies.
They have performed in various groups including Sami Cha, The Goodtime Family Band, The Human Canvas Project, Tom Cat and the Bluegrass Kittens, Hardgrave and Main (featuring Michael David Thomas) and national and international touring band Timbah. Between them they have performed at festivals including the Woodford Folk Festival, Wide Open Space Festival, Alice Springs Desert Festival, and the Belligen World Music Festival.
In a production space, they have been involved in the creation of albums (Timbah), film scores (Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge, QUT Short Film Showcase and Psycho the Musical the Documentary), and have managed the live sound production for various bands and events (including the Alice Springs Desert Music Club).
Dom and Sam have also worked in over 30 remote Aboriginal communities recording local music.
In 2012, Walking Story seeded and managed the Alice Springs Desert Music Club (ASDMC) - an incorporated association dedicated to bringing people and communities together through music.
Along with providing professional development, networking and media opportunities for emerging and working artists, producers, sound engineers and venue managers, the ASMDC ran a variety of successful medium to large scale music events.
