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ECHOES 2022-ONGOING
Echoes, a research based Visual Art and Design project that has become my signature body of work.
Echoes, a research based Visual Art and Design project that has become my signature body of work.
Echoes draws on commonly shared experiences of Indigenous people in Australia and focuses on Chantel’s intrinsic relationship with land and Country. This knowledge then echoes. Their bloodlines echo. Their teachings echo. But do these echoes stick around? Or merely come and go with their spirits? Chantel’s contemporary video art explores these experiences and shares the histories of the landscapes that surround us. To deeply connect with Country as it lives and thrives through yesterday, today, and far into the future.
Chantel (Shonny) Bates is a proud Murri woman with connections to Wakka Wakka Country. She is an emerging mixed media artist, interdisciplinary designer and visual communicator currently located in Meanjin. Her contributions to the Indigenous community are formed organically through connections with mob, she is devoted to strengthening and promoting inclusion of First Nations voices in the development Indigenous art. Heavily inspired by community, she takes pride in using her knowledge to create storylines that hold an impactful voice for herself and those around her. She holds a Bachelor of Design from Queensland University of Technology majoring in Visual communications. Chantel incorporates her ever growing knowledge of Country into teaching and takes pride in reclaiming this rich culture to implement an Indigenous voice into future learners.
It started with a design concept...
My capstone project titled ‘Echoes’ is an art-based video projection series showcasing Indigenous connections to Barrambin. During my university studies, Experimental Visual Communication had allowed me to immerse myself into the ideation process of a project deeper than ever before, which has encouraged me to make more informed decisions about my final project concept. My hybrid approach of incorporating visual art, visual communication techniques and principles of interaction design has inspired my vision for a curated contemporary art video series.
This project takes a major step towards reconciliation of the new Victoria Park/Barrambin developments, currently in the development stage. The inclusion of First Nations voices is an inadmissible step in the development of Australian landscapes. Funding contributions towards this project would solidify opportunities for collaboration with researchers and development teams working towards the parks redesign. As an Indigenous visual artist and graphic designer with connections to Wakka Wakka Country, my work as a young creative in the field holds cultural connections as I take pride in reclaiming heritage through visual communication and interaction design avenues.
‘Echoes’ draws on the commonly shared experience for Indigenous people in Australia and focuses on my intrinsic relationship with land and Country. We take these deep connections and hold them close, sharing with others where we can and constantly caring for and passing on knowledge of place. This knowledge then echoes. Our bloodlines echo. Our teachings echo. But do these echoes stick around? Or merely come and go with our spirits? I want to use this project to explore these experiences and share the histories of the landscapes that surround us. To deeply connect with Country as it lives and thrives through yesterday, today, and far into the future, Echoes will give prominence to this significance and share the story of Barrambin.
The area of what is now Kelvin Grove Urban Village was an important cultural site for the Turrbal and Yuggera First Nations People. The history of this Country is rich in fresh water and pools, with a billabong in what is now McCaskie Park, and a line of pools and small creeks leading down to wetland lagoons at the bottom of Barrambin and onwards to the river. The cultural significance of waterways for the Indigenous communities of Barrambin runs deep, where the water connects land with community. When the Village was built, the park was turned into a golf course and more aligned with the two parts of the university campus along Musk Avenue, almost literally ‘turning its back on the parklands’. Discovering a relationship –kinning–with these seemingly disappeared and concealed (unseen) waterways offers community involvement and establishes a voice for the project. As the project brief states: “This design-led project will investigate ways to unveil this relationship –to rekin and reveal the unseen and long forgotten –through a contextually situated, tangible interaction design response.”
Moving towards a research based approach...
Moving towards a research based approach...
It is important to me that as an Indigenous artist with Wakka Wakka connections, I take the opportunity to research for the Turbal people very seriously. Taking into account how my connection to land needs to respect the owners of the country I am creating on. I will use my connections as an Aborigional member of the community in Meanjin to go above and beyond the research that I need to ensure that everything I create aligns with the stories passed down by the Turabal people for which this project is representing.
Land is central to the culture, identity, and spirituality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is intertwined with family, kinship, lore, customs, stories, song and dance, language, art, ceremony, and healing. This deep relationship between Indigenous Australians and land is often described as ‘connection to Country’ and has become a main theme in my work as an emerging Aboriginal artist and graphic designer. A significant part of my project strategy is about fostering a deeper understanding and recognition of this connection, particularity with respects to the significance of the land now occupied by the Kelvin Grove Urban Village.
Further Research
Barrambin has such a deep history that has not even been fully documented in research papers in the past, so it is important to connect with the local communities to understand their perspectives. This strategy provides a framework for future engagement, decision making, project delivery, and built environment outcomes including significant public realm works, new facilities, planned upgrades and changes to the campus experience. My interdisciplinary designs highlight this reseach based design method.
MAKING MARKS ON COUNTRY
After my research process and my first site walk, I was now ready to approach a mark making activity as I created an artwork at Barrambin. The process of creating this piece aids in providing a deeper connection between myself and the subject of my art.
Follow along through this series of images as I explain the process of the creation of my on site artworks for this piece. These artworks have allowed me to connect to the land through mark making and display the expressions of my experiences at Barrambin.
I began by placing my paper in a shaded area of trees on my site walk. Then I used inks and water to trace each of these shadows, reflecting on why they are present and how they change over time.
I then allowed this to dry in the sun as I continued my site observations - during this period of observation I tracked my emotions, movements and feelings. This allowed me to reflect through more marks on the paper after the ink had dried.
There is an opportunity for the viewer to feel the energy of the mark making, flickering shadows and the emotions of the environment through my art.
Each of these marks with oil sticks and charcoal tells a story - they carry more meaning than just simply a mark on a page, however are marks of storytelling and memory. These marks document time place and connection to Country.
The green marks are representative of the hills I walked over that day. The yellow - times I found water. Charcoal is used here to represent the shapes and forms of flora around me. And the white serves as documentation of the route I walked.
During this phase I created two on site artworks to be included in my video series and experimentation phase. I plan on expanding on these mark making artworks in future developments of Echoes.
Echoes, my capstone project has established myself as an emerging artist and designer. My involvement in the design-led research project brought contextual and historical visibility and sensibility to the ancient creeks and waterways which exist in and around Kelvin Grove Urban Village and Barrambin, reconnecting the Village to the Council’s current redesign of the parklands. ‘Kinning with the unseen more-than-human: Re-sensing Barrambin's disappeared waterways and creeks’ who invited me to inform their research as their Indigenous student voice, using my capstone artwork to capture my perspective on Barrambin.
Land is central to the culture, identity, and spirituality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is intertwined with family, kinship, lore, customs, stories, song and dance, language, art, ceremony, and healing.
Through my creative practice I have drawn focus on the combination of visual communication and interactive design with fine arts - innovating a hybrid design approach. This has allowed for the subject matter to be highlighted through evidence-based research that effectively shape an appealing body of work with emphasis on storytelling. I love using my platform to align myself with progressive projects, taking the chance to immerse myself in positive community partnerships and developments. The capstone unit has augmented my capabilities as an emerging interdisciplinary designer – allowing me to showcase my debut as an experimental artist.
The research methodologies used have uncovered a successful amount of aesthetically strong and unique ideas that highlight my personal skills and capacity as an emerging designer. The inclusion of my Aboriginal cultural connections and informed application of research from a First Nations perspective has ensured for me that Echoes has potential to be a great project, not only through my technical skills but my strong passion and connection to the topic. I have researched technologies within and surrounding my current scope of thesis and extended this research through a successful experimentation phase that has informed a direction for my final project.
As a result of this project – future collaborations with the Kelvin Grove community, including Kelvin Grove State College are developing, which will help solidify my message as an artist in the field of design. With a strong emphasis on technological innovation and a future-focused creative approach, I am confident my project will fulfil my vision to its fullest potential. I am genuinely excited to see my final concept for this work come to fruition and establish myself as an accomplished graduate designer with a reputable body of work.
ECHOES SCREENINGS
QUT DATA WALL
QUT DATA WALL
E BLOCK KG
E BLOCK KG
QUT SPHERE
QUT SPHERE
KELVIN GROVE
KELVIN GROVE
ADELAIDE FESTIVAL CENTRE
ADELAIDE FESTIVAL CENTRE
IMAGES - TOPBUNK
ISEA 2024
ISEA 2024
JURIED ARTIST
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