2023 Michèle Whitecliffe Art Writing Prize runner-up – Rock, fire, salt, ice, rain: Tragic tales of art and climate change

Abstract

This essay was selected as one of two runner-ups in the 2023 Michèle Whitecliffe Art Writing Prize. Each year entrants into the Michèle Whitecliffe Art Writing Prize respond to a theme and in 2023 the theme was ‘Art in the Time of Climate Crisis'. Writers were invited to reflect on the role art might play in addressing and combating this pressing emergency. This year's judge was Tristen Harwood, an Indigenous writer and editor, and a lecturer in Critical and Theoretical Studies at the Victorian College of the Arts. His writing on art, architecture and literature has been published in The Saturday Paper, MeMo, The New York Times T Magazine, Artlink, Art + Australia, Art Guide, Art Almanac, The Monthly, Overland, unMagazine, ArtReview, among others. He is a member of the Plumwood Committee, a contributing editor at MeMo Review, he recently co-edited Artlink, and he is currently a PhD student at RMIT University. Commenting on Jacky Bowring's entry, 'Rock, Fire, Salt, Ice, Rain', Harwood commented that: 'Rock, Fire, Salt, Ice, Rain' is an engaging text, which draws attention to pressing issues in art and ecological crisis. For the author, art isn’t simply a means to comprehend climate disaster but is threated by climate change. Looking at rock art sites in the region, the author tells of how climate change, in particular bush fire, has wreaked havoc on this culturally and historically significant work. But it isn’t simply outdoor works that are under threat, the author also documents recent flooding at Auckland Art Gallery. In these instances, as the author writes, ‘art is a gauge of climate change'.