Take It Home With You! for the Baker's Dozen Exhibition

It all began on Clean Up Australia Day, 2 March 2008, at Gough Whitlam Park, Undercliff, with my inflatable 1 1/2 person boat and air pump, my garbage bags in various colours, my life jacket (or life preserver as it says on the labels), my rubbish 'grabber' - the extended arm and assistants Renee, Luka and Liam (kids helped out periodically).

One month of collecting other peoples recyclable rubbish on the Cooks River! All in the name of art. Well not quite ALL in the name of art. I like to see my art making as a hybrid, a crossover into social activism, environmental activism, social ecology, ecological psychology.

A month of me making an artwork titled Take it Home With You!, at an exhibition called The Bakers Dozen, as part of Riverworks Environmental Sculpture Competition 2008.


Here is an example of a typical day during the month!

Day 1.

Well, it has now all commenced. This morning I set off with the car loaded, assisted by Renee and Luka in tow, 7.30am on Clean Up Australia Day, 2008.

We took the car in order to use the air pump, which runs off the car cigarette lighter socket, to inflate the boat - The Shoalhaven - fresh out of the box. I hope to seek permission from the council to store all my gear in one of the on-site buildings so that I can just arrive on the mountain bike in future. Crossed fingers.

For this inaugural day, of yet another 'insane' artwork according to Renee, we traveled from the gallery along the last few blocks of King Street onto the Princes Highway. Right onto May Street which soon became Unwins Bridge Road. Right onto the railway overpass then left over the river overpass onto Bayview Street. Lastly a right turn, into the carpark of Gough Whitlam Park.

It was a somewhat cold and dreary morning. Rain spat and drizzled, clouds murky grey and wet. Day 1, "what a great start!" was uttered! Still I was persistent, Renee similarly regretful having to leave the comfort and warmth of rest to come to this.

We set up the boat for its maiden voyage. The air pump worked a treat. Though the round plastic oarlocks were tricky to work out.

It was Clean Up Australia Day, yet we were obviously too early to meet with any of the hard working crews that may or may not arrive at this location today. According to Canterbury Council's website there was a crew due to meet at Ewen Park at 9.30am, a good 4 or 5km upstream. So I guess they probably won't make it down to the old Gough. I mention this because I'm unsure of how any cleaning blitz may or may not effect my search and collection of recyclable rubbish over the next 4 weeks.

This morning there was no sign of any park users present when we got there. Only signs of park users past. The grounds of the park are well kept by Canterbury council staff. There is a kiosk and children's play area and some pleasant boardwalks around the water's edge with viewing platforms at well positioned places. It's a relatively well cared for, and potentially well loved and frequented place. This was only my second visit. I made the first visit last Tuesday when preparing my proposal application for the exhibition called The Bakers Dozen that this project is now a part of.


We found three discarded bottles within metres of our car park space. Two PET plastic bottles (1 water, 1 soft drink) and 1 glass bottle (beer). I carried the boat with bag and 'grabber' down to the water's edge. I decided to start in the creek-like tributary (off shoot) which runs from the river proper into Gough Whitlam Park. Captain Dryfoot was I. "I will launch into the river proper once I get warmed up and used to this new boat" I thought to myself.

I paddled off expecting to possibly have to make that transition some time today, but hoped that the circle of water around a small vegetated island would provide me with todays rewards - 1 large garbage bag full of recyclable discarded rubbish. That is the aim every day of this project.


The oars were hard to coordinate - I felt rather like a novice.



I could see some plastic bottles and litter on the island in the middle of this body of water and decided that this would be a great place to start. Within a handful of decent strokes of the oar in the muddy water I was at the small island. Worried that the boat may pierce on mangrove spikes sticking out of the water I cautiously put a shod foot into the water a couple of metres out. Nervous that I may sink knee deep in mud, thankfully the creek bed wasn't so infirm, I pulled the boat up to the edge and began my circumnavigation of the island.

There was plenty to collect. I could have filled 3 bags with all the litter, however, I had to tell myself to stay on task. So I set about collecting only the recyclable litter that I could find. Plastic bottles, glass bottles, aluminium cans, tetra packs ... I found plenty of beer bottles submerged in mud at the edge of the water. The lighter rubbish was more on dry land, floated further by higher water levels during the wet summer. The predominant finds were water bottles, coke varieties, poppers (juice), beer bottles and the Big M type containers, as well as plastic drinking cups.

I walked around and over the island for an hour collecting and retrieving. There were some unexpected finds as well. Tennis balls being a highlight. Used syringes a low point. The rubbish could indicate some of the uses and users of Gough Whitlam Park. Most of this rubbish would have been once owned by these users, then tossed into the water, thrown over onto the island or left on the grass embankment only to be washed into the water by rain. The rubbish on the river proper, on the other hand, could have drifted from suburbs away.

Gough Whitlam Park, used by drug addicts and children alike. Many a cricket game must be played up on the manicured grass during sunlit hours, the smell of barbecues and flies filling the air. I found 5 balls, a small child's lonely aussie flip-flop and a hand-set of a children's throw and catch game. At night it obviously becomes a place for something completely different.


Two sets of used syringes on the small island. Broken bottles on one of the permanent barbecues back over at the park adjacent to the kids play equipment that Renee and Luka had found.




I managed to fill one large black garbage bag and Renee half filled a yellow one over on terra firma. So i threw all of my found oddities and the bag of recyclables into the front of the boat, hopped in myself, and then awkwardly oared back over to the embankment from where I came from.It was now just about 9am and I was now wet, cold and stiff in the back. Luka andRenee had had enough of the dreary conditions also. Besides we had to get back and open the gallery for the punters at 10am. So we packed all back into the car and headed for the Vanishing Point.

During our stay today we did see about 4 people using the park for there morning walk and bike rides. There is a great Cooks River bike track that goes all the way to Ryde one way and Botany Bay the other, some 23 kms. This track goes through Gough Whitlam Park. Two visitors had their beloved pet dogs to accompany them. We had one polite fellow say hello to us as he passed, one strange look from a lady with her dog and indifference from the others. In the days and weeks ahead I'm sure we will meet some of these users and get to know them to some degree, as we will this place and the River.
(photography by Renee Briggs)

So what is this all about?

Canterbury Council fund and coordinate a project called Riverworks, an annual environmental sculpture event now in its third year. The general gist is that it is a weekend of community arts workshops where participants young and old can make sculptural works from supplied materials responding to the environment of the Cook River. A great event where environment meets art in a promotion of sustainable ways of being and living with the vital natural resources that allow us to live and breathe.

Some sculptures win cash prizes as deemed by a panel of judges.

This year the organisers have added an additional section to the event. It is called The Bakers Dozen, 13 professional artists selected to make works for exhibition in Gough Whitlam Park over the weekend of Riverworks - Sat-Sun 29th and 30th March.

There is also prize money for this section.

According to event informational material produced by Canterbury Council;

'The purpose of Riverworks is to:
1/ Bring the community together to discuss, through an interactive
art-making process, the issues that directly face the Cooks River Catchment
2/ Promote Environmental Sculpture.'

And as for the parameters of The Bakers Dozen;

'Thirteen selected artists will be given one month in which to make an environmental
sculpture that considers the natural environment of the Cooks River Catchment in their
work.'

So hence this is where this project begins...

The end results!





The results at the Baker's Dozen exhibition. By the way - the work won first place and one $grand$!







The work was re-exhibited on April 13 at the Cooks River Art and Sustainability Festival, Steel Park Marrickville (over the other side of the river from Gough Whitlam Park) presented by Marrickville Council.

Amazingly the Council had not budgeted for Art to be a part of the festival and saw it necessary to beg the Baker's Dozen to do yet another free gig in the name of 'it'll make ya famous' - ie no pay!

Nonetheless, the project for Take It Home With You! was fully realised when I found the recycle garbage truck and asked if they could participate in the work by receiving all of the recyclable materials that I had collected from the Cooks River. They accepted, for which I was extremely appreciative. Those guys know how to work! Thanks men.