Encountering Sites Disrupted

Kristen Radge’s art practice responds to her experience of entering new sites as a post-colonial settler on traditional Lands. Discourses of disruption, touch, encounter, and trace are key components she considers with her onsite practice in connection to the Australian context of Country. 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 in Garigal Country, examining clay to identify a dialogue that communicates a historical context of community and culture in Place and Time. The concept of touch with foraged 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 colonial land ownership, conflict and struggle. Garigal Country 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 with the reclaiming of clay and return to site. As Kristen surveys a dialogue with organic ceremonial clay from country that is crucial to remain on site, it is within her materiality that this translation of country can be considered.