Posts Tagged ‘Toowoomba floods’
FLOOD DONATION: ‘Toowoomba Water’ book to SLQ
At a time when all Queenslanders were reflecting on the first anniversary of the devastating floods of January 2011 it was fitting that I was able to make a presentation of the book Toowoomba Water to the Australian Library of Art at the State Library of Queensland.
The book features a response to flooding in Toowoomba that took place on January 10th. The book was designed to be output using Australia’s premier print-on-demand supplier – AsukaBook using their Book Bound Hard Cover 10″x10″ format.
Water came within 20cm of our studio and a brown torrent flowed into our garden and under the house. At the bottom of our street a massive flow of water along East Creek took the lives of two people.
The book makes a commentary on the flood by responding to an aspect of the event that was ‘sampled’ and then brought together to form the book – it is an unusual approach to the documentation of place. Reference for this methodology comes from the work of Marcel Duchamp‘s Paris 1919, Sol LeWitt’s colour grids and Bruce Nauman‘s L.A. Air.
The donation was accepted by Helen Cole, Senior Librarian, Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland.
SEE THE BOOK: http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/2_PLACES/OtherBooks/Twba_Water_Flip/TwbaWater-Flip.html (Note: This link is to a Flash Flipbook that may not play on all viewing devices)
24 November: A Photographer’s Gathering – Nev Madsen
About thirty local photographers gathered at an event at the Toowoomba Cobb and Co Museum to celebrate the work of photographers from the Toowoomba Chronicle newspaper. Featured in this event organised by Cobb and Co staff member and photographer Tony Coonan was an interview with Walkley Award winning photographer Neville Madsen. The interview was conducted by local photography identity John Elliott. John posed questions about Nev’s beginnings in photography, his early experiences in Warwick under the tuteladge of John Harrison and Gordon Brown, how he feels about working for newspapers today, and the circumstances of his making the award-winning photograph.
As a testemony to Neville’s dedication to being a documenter of his community he was not on duty on the day of the flood – via a scanner he was aware of what was happening and went to a location he thought would provide some action. He started shooting video and soon realised that what he was witnessing was a significant life threatening drama and grabbed his ‘real camera’ to capture the unfolding event.
Words and photos: Doug Spowart