Recipient of the prestigious Dreaming Award in May 2014, Tyrone Sheather this year premieres his extraordinary public artwork, Giidanyba (Sky Beings), at the Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens this year as part of the 2015 Dark Mofo in June.
Giidanyba was developed at the SITUATE Art in Festivals Arts Lab held in Hobart 2013 alongside the first Dark Mofo. Dark MOFO Creative Director Leigh Carmichael recently said in Real Time magazine, “When Dark MOFO partnered with Situate Art in Festivals in 2013, I didn’t know quite what to expect—either from the artists, or of the festival itself. The proposals coming out of the Situate Arts Lab were very strong. I was interested in four proposals in particular, all challenging and risk-taking in different ways. Tyrone Sheather’s Giidanyba came through because of the melding of ancient mythology with high-tech, and his community’s commitment to sharing culture.”
The Dark Mofo program describes the installation: ‘Tyrone’s seven sculptures float amongst the trees, depicting nocturnal spirits of ancient Aboriginal mythology that impart knowledge and guidance to Gumbaynggirr people. As night falls and you move closer, these Giidanyba or ‘sky beings’ transform from unlit statues to bright, shimmering beings in the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in Hobart, Tasmania.’
Tyrone Sheather is a young Gumbaynggirr artist from Bellingen who works within different art mediums including photography, film, projection art, paint, textiles and dance. He loves creating works that blur the boundaries between these art forms as well as incorporating new technology to create fresh and exciting ways for art to be perceived with relevance to the evolving world.
The SITUATE Arts Lab is a key feature of SITUATE Art in Festivals, a Salamanca Arts Centre project designed to support outstanding Early Career Artists to develop new Australian experimental artworks for diverse festival environments and is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Other Artists will have the opportunity to join the SITUATE Arts Lab in January 2016 by submitting an application via the SITUATE website from Tuesday 16 June 2015.
Giidanyba
by Tyrone Sheather
In the Dreaming (Yuludarla), the Hero-Ancestors made and transformed the landscape with their special powers of creation and destruction. Simulating a Gumbaynggirr rite of passage, Giidanyba symbolises these Spiritual Ancestors, as they descend from the Muurrbay Bundani (tree of life) in the sky, to support people throughout they’re cultural journey and to guide them into the next stage of their lives.
Emanating from within these spirit-like forms, sound and light are made responsive to the movement of audiences, via internal electronics, whilst the structural components of the installation are made of fibreglass and steel. Traditional ochres have been applied to the surface of individual figures by Gumbaynggirr community members, under the direction of the artist.
Tyrone Sheather is an artist of mixed heritage, belonging to the Gumbaynggirr people from the mid-north coast of New South Wales. His artistic practice spans, film, photography, new media, painting and dance. His work aims to explore identity and to reveal, through a combination of traditional and contemporary media, knowledge and stories that have been passed down over centuries within the Gumbaynggirr Dreamtime.
Giidanyba (Sky Beings)
Dark Mofo 11 – 21 June 2015
Open 5.00 – 10.00pm nightly
Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens
Lower Domain Road Queens Domain
Hobart Tasmania 7000
Official Website: www.situate.org.au
Dark Mofo Program: http://www.darkmofo.net.au/program/giidanyba/
