Encountering Sites Disrupted on the Lands of the Garigal People.

Kristen Radge’s art practice responds to her experience of entering new sites as a settler on traditional Lands of the Garigal People. Discourses of disruption, touch, encounter, and trace are key components she considers with her onsite practice. These elements have assisted situating her body in place in connection with historical events politically, culturally, industrially, and environmentally. Kristen’s inquiry is through onsite field work on Garigal examining clay to identify a dialogue that communicates a historical context of community and culture in Place and Time. The concept of touch with wild clay is essential in Kristen’s art practice as she examines her agency through methods that speak of her experience and making process while working on sites that are historically imbedded in settler land ownership, conflict and struggle. Garigal is a site she has returned to, examining the excavation of clay, shale, laterite and kaolin for roadworks and urban development from the Duffys Forest Brick Pit Quarry, 1960s till late 1980s. Kristen’s art practice documents her response to the Brick Pit and the bricks that were produced from this Quarry. Kristen surveys a dialogue with wild clay that remains on site.