Sugar vs the Reef?
Artists
Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein
Location
Mackay, Queensland
Dates
2016 – 2019
Sub-project
Watershed: Botanic Gardens Land Art Project
Sugar vs the Reef? was a large-scale, socially engaged collaborative project with sugarcane farmers, artists, Yuwibara traditional custodians, Australian South Sea Islanders, natural resource managers and community members of Mackay.
Over four years, between 2016 and 2019, Williams and Ihlein travelled back and forth to Mackay, Queensland. They worked with a broad range of collaborators to explore cultural change from within the farming community, celebrating the experiments and innovations of farmers practising regenerative agriculture methods. In July 2017, they presented the agri/cultural event Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers in collaboration with Mackay farmer Simon Mattsson.
From 2018, the sub-project Watershed Land Art Project involved the planting of an experimental crop of sugar cane and sunflowers at the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens, with multiple planting and harvest events. This project was a collaboration with farmers and members of the Australian South Sea Islander and Yuwibara communities, along with community collaborators. An exhibition based on the project was presented at Artspace Mackay in November 2018.
Click on images for full view and details of work.
Events
1. Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers (July 2017) – held on Simon Mattsson’s farm
Video documentary: Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers (click here to view)
2. Legume Planting Event (March 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
The Legume Song lyrics [PDF file]
3. Seed and Song Planting Event (August 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
Video documentary: Seed and Song Planting Event (click here to view)
The Planting Song lyrics [PDF file]
Media Release [PDF file]
4. Sunflower and Song Harvest Event (November 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
The Harvest Song lyrics [PDF file]
Event Flyer [PDF file]
Media release for Sunflower and Song Harvest Event (November 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens [PDF file]
5. Old Ways New Ways Sugarcane Harvest Event (October 2019) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
Video documentary: Old Ways, New Ways (click here to view)
The Mackay Tarantella Song lyrics [PDF file]
6. Other Project Images
Exhibition
Exhibition catalogue: Sugar vs the Reef? Artspace Mackay, October 2018 – January 2019 [PDF file]
Exhibition flyer: Sugar vs the Reef? Artspace Mackay, October 2018 – January 2019 [JPEG file]
Hats of Mackay (video work from the exhibition)
Selected images from the exhibition
Blogs
Sugar vs the Reef ? Stories from the canefields of Mackay
WATERSHED – The Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens Land Art Project
Education
Future Leaders Eco-Challenge workshops (in partnership with Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, September 2018) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
Future Leaders Eco-Challenge workshops (in partnership with Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, March 2019) – Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens
Social media
Instagram – Watershed Land Art Mackay
Facebook – Watershed – Art Agriculture Conservation Community
Media
ABC Tropical North Radio: (July 2017) [Part 1: MP3] [Part 2: MP3] (August 2018)
ABC Radio Sunflower and Song (November 2018) [MP3 file]
My 105.9fm Indigenous radio 2017, 2018, October 2019 [MP3 file]
Channel 7 Mackay, July 2017 [MP4 file]
Channel 9 Mackay, November 2018
Mackay Daily Mercury newspaper, November 2018
Rural Weekly, May 10, 2019; October 14, 2019 [PDF file]
Watershed Land Art Project Information Flyer [PDF file]
The Legume Planting event flyer [PDF file]
Siteworks, Bundanon, 29th September 2018, Panel – Simon Mattson, Lucas Ihlein, Kim Williams + Robbie Buck [MP3 file]
Reports
Soil test results for The Beacon (Watershed Botanic Gardens Land Art Project) [PDF file]
Australia Council for the Arts, 2018-2019 Annual Report [PDF file]
The Beacon Rainfall run-off simulation test [PDF file]
Related Publications
2022 Kim Williams (lead author), Lucas Ihlein. "Fresh water, salt water: socially engaged art, collaboration and the environment", (Book chapter), Water Lore: Practice, Place and Poetics (eds. Camille Rouliere and Claudia Egerer), Routledge Environmental Humanities [PDF file]
Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, 2019, “Working and Walking with Waterways”, 100 Atmospheres: Studies in Scale and Wonder (book chapter), Open Humanities Press [PDF file]
Lucas Ihlein, Laura Fisher, Kim Williams, Simon Mattsson, 2018, “Socially Engaged Art and Agriculture: Experimenting with Extension”, Journal of Sustainability Education 17, February 2018 [PDF file]
Laura Fisher, 2017, “Ecologies of Land and Sea and the Rural/Urban Divide in Australia: Sugar vs the Reef? and The Yeomans Project”, Culture and Dialogue 5: 98-130
Fiona Vuibeqa, Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, 2018, catalogue interview, Sugar vs the Reef? exhibition, Artspace Mackay
Proposals
Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, Simon Mattson, John Sweet (Central Queensland Soil Health Systems), 2018. Outline proposal for a partnership with Central Queensland University to establish a demonstration farm in the Pioneer Valley, Mackay [PDF file] [PDF file] [PDF file]
Kim Williams, 2019. Farmer-to-Farmer mentorship program. A regenerative agriculture demonstration model [PDF file]
Conferences and Presentations
Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, Water Futures – Asia Pacific Knowledge Exchange and Transdisciplinary Laboratory, 23-25 February 2017, Melbourne
Kim Williams, H2O: Life and Death, University of Adelaide, 14-16 September, 2017 (an interdisciplinary conference organized by the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice)
Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, Farmer/Artist Collaborations: An Australian Perspective, May 2018, University of California, Santa Barbara
Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, Simon Mattsson, Conversation with Robbie Buck, Siteworks, Bundanon Trust, Illaroo, September 2018
Kim Williams, Lucas Ihlein, Artists talk, Sugar vs the Reef? exhibition, Artspace Mackay, October 2018
Photos and Videos
Thanks to Cherrie Hughes, Jac Koetze, Robert Bole, Tyler Kinbacher