Posts Tagged ‘NERAM’
COOPER+SPOWART+MARCHBANK SHORT-FILM WINS AWARD
“CLICK” to view the YouTube video of the winning short-film “BEING PRESENT – Mokoan: Wet”
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Cooper+Spowart and Bree Marchbank have just won FIRST PRIZE in Section 4: Photography and Digital Works in the 2026 Martin Hanson Memorial Art Awards at the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum.
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THE BACK STORY OF THE WORK
Many of you will be aware of how Mokoan, (also known as Winton Wetlands) in northern Victoria, has become our muse over the last 5 years. While our previous creative responses have been resolved in artists books and framed diptychs, our recent work is a short film.
In this work we continue to explore the continuing flux of presence and absence in the environment of Mokoan as well as the concept of Being Present in the landscape. Our submission was accompanied by the following statement:
Being present in the landscape is the moment where we lose ourselves – corporeality evaporates, and the physical space becomes a psychological state. A poetic and aesthetic conversation arises through observation, walking and deep reverie with the land and its multi-layered historical and ecological narrative. This place is neither still nor silent; the air and land is dynamic, filled with sound and movement.
The impetus to work on this project came from Nikki James, Yorta Yorta Nation Elder and Traditional Owner, currently the Koorie Cultural Engagement Officer at Mokoan Winton Wetlands. She invited us to present our work at a NAIDOC event she was planning in July this year.
As the design of the project and initial image sequences were resolved we invited Bree Marchbank, a sound artist who has great empathy with the land, its spirit and narrative, to create a sonic composition to further animate the video. Marchbank’s sound combines in situ sampling in the Wetlands, with instrumental and voice work created in response to both being present and the visual narrative of the video.
Our short film was finished and presented at the Wetland’s NAIDOC event on July 10, 2026. Following the premiere of the video we were asked to participate in an impromptu Q&A session – the work was very well received for its communicative ability to present an experience of the Mokoan.
The BEING PRESENT – Mokoan: Wet HD video is 5 minutes 24 seconds duration. Soon after the NAIDOC presentation the video was entered in the Martin Hanson Memorial Art Awards at Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum. We selected the Photography and Digital Works section as it also included moving image, animation and soundscape works.
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ABOUT THE MARTIN HANSON MEMORIAL ART AWARD
Since its inauguration in 1976, this Award has become one of Queensland’s most prestigious regional art events and is eagerly anticipated each year. The Award acknowledges Martin Hanson who was a popular and highly respected local businessman, a Member for Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Port Curtis 1963-1976, and patron to the Gladstone Artists Club. The Awards cover 4 Sections including: Easel Painting, Works on Paper, 3D & Fibre works, Photography & Digital works as well as many other special awards.
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ABOUT THE JUDGE
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Rachael Parsons, Director of New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM). Rachael is an Australian curator, educator and academic. With more than 15 years experience, she has worked as an independent and institutional curator across university, commercial, public and artist-run spaces.
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THE AWARD
FIRST PRIZE Section 4: Photography and Digital Works
Sponsored by the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery
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BEING PRESENT – Mokoan: Wet – Sample Sequence
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SEE OTHER AWARD SECTIONS AND PRIZES
Martin Hanson Art Award list 2026 – winners-list
ARTISTS’ STATEMENTS ABOUT THEIR PRACTICE
Portrait by David Williams
For Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart collaboration is a dynamic space to test and challenge their individual creative practice and explore new and unchartered territory. They are informed by Charles Green’s book The Third Hand, where he proposes that collaboration creates a new entity full of potential and possibilities.
Over time their collaboration with Nature and the non-human has deepened and broadened their perceptions of Being-in-the-world. Their practice of Being is fully engaged with Nature.
Bree Marchbank with gong Photo by Doug Spowart
Bree Marchbank approaches sound creation as ritual and collaboration, using improvisation to explore connections to place. The sound developed through a devotional practice which included field recordings and attentive listening in community and nature.
Her recordings capture the living presence of place, with and without instrumentation, creating sonic textures, and relational gestures that invite deeper connection and shared experiences for the audience. The sound reflects repeating patterns that mirror organic processes of emergence and transformation.
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OTHER COOPER+SPOWART WORKS IN HANSON ART AWARDS
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2023 Martin Hanson Memorial Art Award – Works presented
MARTIN HANSEN MEMORIAL ART AWARDS: Our Works
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2020 Martin Hanson Memorial Art Award – Winner of 2 Awards – Works on Paper
COOPER+SPOWART books win ‘works on paper’ Awards
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2010 Martin Hanson Memorial Art Award – Winner of Works on Paper
SEE REFERENCE to the artwork Australian Banquet, January 25/ 26, 1788
BRITISH LIBRARY Acquires our cyanotype artists’ book
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NOCTURNE ARMIDALE: a community photo project
Sam Walkom’s Imperial Hotel rephotography DUO taken through the Post Office’s arches
NOCTURNE ARMIDALE: Capturing Armidale in a new light
In our latest Nocturne project we worked with a group of photographers from the Armidale region to document the change of light from day to night. The special theme we developed for the Nocturne: Armidale project was to capture the town in both the early evening’s nocturnal light with a second photograph of the subject during daylight. This ‘re-photography’ approach resulted in a comparative pairs of images revealing the evocative nature of nocturne light and how it transforms everyday places.
The project began in mid-September when we conducted a workshop at the New England Region Art Museum (NERAM) in re-photography and nocturne light capture. This included practical shoots around Armidale from which images were then optimized and uploaded to Nocturne: Armidale project Facebook page to share with the wider community. Another aspect of the project was the digital processing and optimising of nocturne photographs. This was accomplished in a mentored section of the workshop with the participant’s images.
Doug presenting his workshop on file optimisation
A group shot of some of the Nocturne Armidale participants PHOTO: Neil Burton
Les Davis from the National Trust Home Saumarez, provided project participants with a unique opportunity to photograph this magnificent historical homestead. Over two separate nights images were made to highlight the home’s colonial architecture.
It was suggested in our original proposal that the work produced could be at some later stage be exhibited. And during the workshop Greg from the New England Art Society Armidale Art Gallery came forward with the offer of an exhibition space in their gallery.
In the two months following the workshop we finalised the optimisation of 25 pieces from the workshop – most of them re-photography Duos, and printed them for the participants. Other print coordination took place with workshop participant Neil Burton who provided access to his wide-format printer for large images to be made. At the end of November we returned to Armidale with Neil and his partner Lindy Osbourne to hang the shows.
Hanging the Nocturne Armidale exhibition
Part of the Nocturne Armidale exhibition at the Armidale Art Gallery
The project’s main exhibition was shown at the Armidale Art Gallery in Beardy Street and we presented a floortalk on December 3rd that was attended by around 25 visitors as well as most of the project’s participants. The exhibition of images from the Saumarez shoot-outs was officially opened by photographer and publisher Terry Cooke on December 2 and will remain on display at Saumarez until January 29th, 2017. A third exhibition of photographs included our images and works by Neil Burton will be on show in the Armidale Council Chambers until March 5, 2017.
With Terry Cooke, Les Davis and Neil Burton at the opening of the Saumarez show PHOTO: Lindy Osbourne
Vicky presenting a floortalk about the Nocturne show
The Nocturne: Armidale exhibitions include photographs by Paul Bayne, Sue Burgess, Neil Burton, Victoria Cooper, Les Davis, Ross Jenkins, Jeni Mackenzie, Doug Spowart, Sam Walkom and Jim Walmsley.
Here is a selection of the Nocturne Armidale project images…
Click on image to open a gallery viewer for author and subject details.
Robert Heather, the Director of NERAM described us as a ‘nomadic photographic duo’ and acknowledged that we had, with our group of local photographers, had ‘braved cold, wet and windy conditions to create some beautiful and dramatic images of places which we all know well such as the old Courthouse, Saumarez Homestead, the cathedrals, hotels and railway station.”
The New England FOCUS Magazine published a story on our work and background to the Nocturne Armidale project – Download a PDF focus-nocturnearmidale-red (20Mb)
The Nocturne: Armidale project was coordinated by the New England Regional Art Museum in partnership with the New England Art Society and supported by Saumarez Homestead and Armidale Regional Council.
Regatta Hotel, Brisbane – Rephotography DUO
ABOUT NOCTURNE PHOTOGRAPHY
Nocturne photography captures a time of day where the afterglow of sunset and the glow of streetlights can transform the everyday experience of place. In these photographs, street scenes and buildings that may be familiar in normal daylight take on the dramatic appearance of movie sets. Some photographs created at this time can require long camera exposures and therefore produce images that can capture blurred movement of people and car headlight trails. These images offer to the community a different perspective to their daily experience of place.
Nocturne Armidale Logo
MORE ABOUT COOPER and SPOWART NOCTURNE PROJECTS
NOCTURNE: ARMIDALE, the project is part of continuing series, conducted by Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart, across Eastern Australia including past events in Muswellbrook, Grafton, Bundaberg and Miles.
Through our Nocturne documentary photography and Facebook social media projects, we have explored connections with Place in urban and regional communities throughout Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. For us the phenomenon of nocturnal light transforms these everyday spaces. Buildings, busy street corners, quiet alleyways all become filled with the dramatic light of a movie scene. In 2013 and 2014 we were given the opportunity, through funded Artists-in-Residence (AIR) programmes, to undertake Nocturne projects in the regional communities of Muswellbrook, Grafton and Bundaberg.
The photographs in themselves have no intrinsic meaning – it is the viewer, with their experience and memory that brings life to the image. In this moment of connection they may recount a personal narrative or connect with the historical significance of the place. This collaboration between photograph and viewer is exciting and vibrant – expanding the potential for the documentary image to go beyond the vision of the photographer.
Examples of other Nocturne Projects and Facebook responses can be found at: <www.nocturnelink.com>
Cooper+Spowart shooting Nocturne
ABOUT COOPER+SPOWART
Our arts practice is informed by our ongoing and evolving connection with Place. Our Place-Projects are influenced by the context and the consequences of living within a constantly changing landscape. We work with a range of photographic concepts, from the camera obscura, through analogue processes to the digital forms of the medium. Our work is presented as visual narratives in artists’ books, photobooks, exhibition images and and on blogs and social media.
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Copyright in all Nocturne Armidale project images is retained by the author – any use of these photographs must be approved by the copyright owner.
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