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STEM in Art
Key Idea 1: First Nations Ecological Perspectives & Connections

N’arweet Carolyn Briggs AM and Sarah Lynn Rees, Gathering Space: Ngargee Djeembana 2021, installation view, Who's Afraid of Public Space? 2021–22, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artists. Photograph: Andrew Curtis
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Since time immemorial, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have scientifically investigated the world around them and put this knowledge to use. Encompassing everything from the soil to the sky, these First Peoples’ ecological perspectives and connection to Country includes scientific knowledge of the stars, moon, tide, atmosphere, weather, seasons, and ecosystems. This knowledge has been passed down across generations through culture; storytelling, songlines, art and dance are some of the ways many First Peoples’ cultural and ecological knowledge continues to be practiced and shared today. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have used this scientific knowledge to care for Country across what is now known as Australia, maintaining the diversity of natural resources and ecosystems for over 65 000 years. Using sophisticated and sustainable agricultural systems, care for Country includes a variety of methods such as cultural burning (Nangak Tamboreein, in the Woi-wurrung language of Wurundjeri people), fishing traps made from woven fibre baskets, and storing and sowing plants such as wild yams. 

The work of contemporary artists Yhonnie Scarce (Kokatha and Nukunu), Katie West (Yindjibarndi), N’arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM (Boon Warrung) and Sarah Lynn Rees (Palawa) expresses a continuation and necessity of First Nations cultural knowledge in understanding and caring for Country. 

  1. Introduction
    1. Yhonnie Scarce, Missile Park 2021
    2. Katie West, Warna/Ground 2018
    3. Sarah Lynn Rees and N’Arweet Carolyn Briggs, Gathering Space: Ngargee Djeembana 2021
  2. Support Material
  3. For Teachers

Key Artworks

Yhonnie Scarce, Missile Park 2021, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY, Melbourne. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Yhonnie Scarce
Missile park
2021

Corrugated iron (tin), nails, bitumen, steel chain, glass

Yhonnie Scarce is an artist known for sculptural installations which span architecturally-scaled public art projects to intimately-scaled assemblages replete with personal and cultural histories. Scarce is a master glass-blower, which she puts to the service of spectacular and spectral installations full of aesthetic, cultural and political significance.

Yhonnie Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia, in 1973, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples. Scarce’s work often references the ongoing effects of colonisation on Aboriginal people and Country. Her research has explored the impact of nuclear testing, the displacement and relocation of Aboriginal people from their homelands, and the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families. Family history is central to Scarce’s work, drawing on the experience and strength of her ancestors. She shares her ancestors’ significant stories from the past, highlighting how they resonate in the present. 

Yhonnie Scarce’s 2021 commissioned artwork, Missile park continues the artist’s research into the British nuclear tests carried out in Maralinga, Australia in the 1950s and 60s. 

Missile park is an art installation made of three life-size sheds that reference and mirror the temporary buildings established by the military at Maralinga during the height of nuclear testing in the region. Echoing vernacular (meaning everyday) Australian architecture, the interior of each structure is dark and tomb-like. Each structure houses twenty large black glass bush plums, a native food found on Kokatha land. These strong yet fragile orb-like objects symbolise lives lost due to the nuclear testing in and around the Woomera Prohibited Zone, which largely consists of Kokatha Country. Missile park is a memorial to the scores of unmarked graves and hidden burial grounds across this country. Glass is a significant artmaking material for Scarce: it is made of silica, a material found in sand, directly linked to the landscape of Maralinga and the materiality of Country. Glass is also formed when sand is heated to intense temperatures, referencing British nuclear blasts in Maralinga.


Activity – Design and Technologies

Students can create their own sculpture responding to the idea of ‘shelter’, producing a sculpture made from recycled cardboard and applying critical and creative thinking. Start by creating a visual design, with intentions, labels, measurement and construction process. The design of the sculpture is measured and marked out onto the cardboard and a series of production steps are followed and tested using a range of suitable joining methods to produce the sculpture. Consider techniques including folds, flange, slot, tab, gusset, brace. Option to use ‘Makedo’ tools (available online) or found screws and hardware to experiment with joining techniques.


Activity
Yhonnie Scarce: Missile Park – Education Kit for architectural sculptural activities for primary or secondary students.

Yhonnie Scarce STEM Curriculum link

Katie West, Warna/Ground 2018; Hold 2018; Keeping pieces 2018, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne 2021. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Katie West
Ground 2018
Hold 2018
Keeping pieces 2018

All: calico dyed with eucalyptus and puffball 100 x 100 cm / variable dimensions

Katie West belongs to the Yindjibarndi people of the Pilbara tablelands in Western Australia. She lives and works in Noongar, Ballardong Boodja, in York, Western Australia.

West creates objects, installations and happenings. The process and notion of naturally dyeing fabric is significant to West’s practice, which she describes as ‘the rhythm of walking, gathering, bundling, boiling up water and infusing materials with plant matter.’ The artist often chooses sustainable materials and approaches as part of a connection to Country, its health and wellbeing. West questions the ways we weave our stories, places, histories and futures together. 

These three artworks are documents or impressions of the environment much like a fingerprint of a person, or a photographic “contact image”. They capture the environment through colour pigment as the environment leaves physical marks or impressions on the calico. Unlike a photograph, we don’t see a figurative image, but an abstract impression of the environment. 

The format of Katie West’s three canvases use variations on the cartographic* standard of one square metre, measurement methods also used to divide land for property ownership.

The way the works are hung is intended to disrupt traditional ways of hanging and exhibiting art works; the works fold to form different geometric configurations. West writes: “…through the fabric’s cotton fibres and the plant dye carried in these fibres, the canvases are a continuation of Country. These works have no edges”.

* Cartography is the science of map-making


Activity – Design and Technologies

West investigates and sources organic and discarded materials. The artist experiments with these materials and uses the cyanotype process to capture impressions of the surrounding environment. Canvases are generated and developed by experimenting with cotton fibers and plant dye to produce abstract impressions of the environment.

Students can create cyanotype prints with organic and discarded inorganic materials around your school or home to capture impressions of surrounding environment. Explore the cyanotype process using light-sensitive paper and by experimenting with exposure times, and variations of natural and artificial UV light sources.


Activity
Biography of Daphne – Education kit ‘For Teachers’ for activity descriptions

Katie West STEM Curriculum link

N’arweet Carolyn Briggs AM and Sarah Lynn Rees, Gathering Space: Ngargee Djeembana 2021, installation view, Who's Afraid of Public Space? 2021–22, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy the artists. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Sarah Lynn Rees and N’Arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM
Space: Ngargee Djeembana
2021

Mixed media installation

Sarah Lyn Rees is a Palawa built environment practitioner, an associate and Lead Indigenous Advisor at Jackson Clements Burrows Architects. She is a Lecturer at Monash University and program advisor curator of the BLAKitecture series for MPavilion. Rees is Director of Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture, a member of the Victorian Government Architect, and Co-Chair of the Australian Institute of Architects First Nations Advisory Working Group.

N’Arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM is a Senior Boonwurrung Elder, founding Chair of the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council and custodian of the Yalukit William in Birrung-ga. She is Indigenous Research Fellow in the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous research lab, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University.

This collaboration explores the negotiations and transactional relationship between Country, people and community and asks the question, ‘if our public spaces were made from the materials of Country, what would those materials be?’. Ngargee Djeembana is a mixed media installation that brings together visual arts, performance, story and dance. The physical installation is composed of extracted materials which are fundamental to the built environment across Victoria, such as timbers, minerals, sand and stone. Each material is either in its raw or refined form. It can be smelt, felt and touched.


Activity – Design and Technologies

Rees and Briggs have extracted materials from Victoria’s built environment. A topography of materials form part of an installation with a focus on the identity of Country. Students can conduct their own site investigation around their school or home, documenting the materials used in build, human-made constructions. Students may go on to research the material’s manufacturers and likely extraction site or source of raw materials, summarising their findings in a table or map.

Sarah Lynn Rees and N’Arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM STEM Curriculum link

Support Material

READ
Yhonnie Scarce – Article on the history of Maralinga nuclear tests
Sarah Lynn Rees and N’Arweet Carolyn Briggs – online research document of full list of exhibition components and materials
Victorian Traditional Owner: Cultural Fire Strategy – online document


WATCH
Katie West – mini documentary making artworks using native plants to dye fabric
Sarah Lynn Rees – artist interview and see Ngargee Djeembana installed at ACCA

 

 

For Teachers

Primary activities

Yhonnie Scarce: Missile Park – Education Kit for Architectural Sculpture activities for primary students

Katie West: Biography of Daphne – Education Kit for Cyanotype: Abstract Contact Print activities for primary students

Curriculum Interpretation

The activities in this STEM Art File are intended to build students’ and teachers’ awareness of the many ways STEM is present in Contemporary Art practices. By enhancing knowledge and creating connections between Art, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths students deepen their understanding whilst expanding their creativity and critical thinking skills.

Secondary activities

Yhonnie Scarce: Missile Park – Education Kit for Architectural Sculpture activities for secondary students

Katie West: Biography of Daphne – Education Kit for Cyanotype: Abstract Contact Print activities for secondary students

Curriculum Interpretation

The activities in this STEM Art File are intended to build students’ and teachers’ awareness of the many ways STEM is present in Contemporary Art practices. By enhancing knowledge and creating connections between Art, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths students deepen their understanding whilst expanding their creativity and critical thinking skills.

Terms of Use

This education resource has been produced by ACCA Education to provide information and classroom support material for educators. The reproduction and communication of this resource is permitted for educational purposes only.

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