Julia Roche

SIT BENEATH - INSTALLATION

Arbour Festival, Eastern Riverina Arts
28 December - 15 February 2021

Roche’s family was directly impacted by the January fires in 2020. With family homes, properties and stock around the Adelong area, her husband, brother and sister in-laws and extended family fought on the front line defending their farms and the broader community.

Roche aesthetically responds to her experience with 50 oil marked flags... representing the 50 days the fire gave threat. These vibrant and saturated sheets of canvas hang vertically from grand Petula Alba – European White Birches that stand tall in the arboretum at Pilot Hill, which narrowly and thankfully missed the devastation of the Dunns Road fire.

With subtle reference to flames, the flags dance and move with the wind and hang motionless when calm. This artwork will weather and fade in the elements acknowledging the completion of a natural cycle. Roche’s intention was to create a space inviting people to sit in nature, to observe and feel a sense of calm and connectedness. SIT BENEATH encourages viewers to reflect on the year, acknowledge what has been, and feel hopeful for the future.

Materials collected from the Arboretum and the Adelong area were used in the creation of the 50 flags; including collected charcoal and branches and leaves as painting implements.

ARBOUR FESTIVAL is a project by the mountains, for the mountains. The key artists involved in the project are bushfire-affected artists from the region impacted by the Dunns Road fire. For 50 days in a forest clearing, from 28 December 2020, surrounded by soaring trees that survived the blaze, visitors will be able to experience ephemeral Installation Artworks in a variety of traditional and contemporary mediums. Leading local bushfire-affected artists will be front and centre in transforming the Pilot Hill Arboretum.

ARBOUR FESTIVAL is a project of Eastern Riverina Arts, supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

The Arbour Festival team acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we live and work – the Ngarigo, Wiradjuri and Wolgalu people – today and every day. We pay our respects to all elders – past, present and future.

Photography Jack of Hearts Studio and Tayla Martin