The Toowoomba Arts Footprint has welcomed the first of three artists who were successful in their application for a $20,000 Artist in Residence opportunity.
Cara-Ann Simpson, Curator at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery is a local Goombungee resident returning to Toowoomba as an artist, curator, consultant and cultural heritage expert. She is a multidisciplinary artist who has exhibited broadly within Australia and internationally, with a focus on photography, installation, sensoria, space and the participant.
Cara-Ann’s project – Spectral Sensoria – centres on exploring sensory perception and how people engage with their environment. Participants will have the opportunity to connect with Country, and become immersed in their environment through educational, creative and meditative methods through a series of field trips and studio workshops. “Each discovery I make has its own story about where I found it: what I heard, smelled, saw and felt, as well as how I reacted to the space,” she says. Audiences will be enticed by interesting smells, tempted by curious sounds and engaged by beautiful images.
Spectral Sensoria is a collaborative project including high school students, USQ students and community members. Participants will create individual artworks and collaborative sound and olfactory installations which showcase Toowoomba region’s natural, environmental, and cultural historic and living heritage, as well as having creative outcomes.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about how Cara-Ann develops her ‘spectral photography’, using visual analysis of soundwaves to interpret the projects through their own preferred visual mediums. Participants will develop collaborative sound compositions from aural field recordings at places like Gummingurru Cultural Heritage site, and will explore the conceptual boundaries of their project.
Spectral Sensoria is fully funded by Arts Queensland and South West Qld Regional Arts as part of the Toowoomba Arts Footprint Artists in Residence program. Expressions of Interest are now invited for participants in this innovative project which will run from 9th April to 22nd April as part of Cara-Ann’s month-long residency.
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