POSTCARD PROJECT - SERIES ONE
Postcard example:
Text by Marita Batna, January 2019
“I have a question for the Island.”
-Scott Welsh, The Island Play, 2018.
Postcards released by Creative Occupation (twenty nine different images) can be now seen, obtained and sent during the Creative Occupation showcase (10-31 January 2019) at The Project Space, Deakin Waterfront Campus, Western Beach Road, Geelong (opposite Cunningham Pier).
Series One extends an invitation – Send it to the Island & Receive. Send it and receive it back for collection.
Creative Occupation is taking place on the Island of South Channel Fort (-38.306667, 144.801389): a group of artists are developing a process of ideas, projects and discoveries. With their investigative and exploratory intentions they claim an occupancy of the island.
Imagine that “creative” describes not only an act but also a continuous process for production – experience and transformation that regenerates itself, and adds new layers through possibilities in the interactions between different agencies. That process, inherent to the undertaking of Creative Occupation, is co-productive in the interactions between the artists and between the artists and the island. Now you can join the mix.
South Channel Fort is a “man-made” artificial island and fort in the waters around Port Phillip: constructed in the 1880s for military defences of the Victorian Colony, it became redundant since the 1920s, providing a site for birds and seals; rocks are making a habitat for marine life. The island is a hybrid ecosystem and a social-natural construct.
The word “occupation” enfolds different meanings, – like the island itself, “occupation” is ambiguous. For Creative Occupation – it amounts to determination, unraveling of information layers, questioning and wondering. The undertaking of Creative Occupation develops and invents multiplicity of narratives that the island triggers.
The images of postcards are expressions of Creative Occupation. They are links to the island and encapsulate encounters, moments, and the manifestations of enacted narratives. Postcards have turned events in the physical world – within Creative Occupation – into something light that you can send back to the island.
Pick an image and compose a message adding to Creative Occupation – use impressions gathered from the Creative Occupation process and narratives to communicate ideas and questions this experience evokes.
What question do you have for the island?
Artists in the project are messengers to physically deliver your chosen and written postcard to the island and to organize a message for you to receive back with it.
1. Send: Write a Creative Occupation postcard with date, message or signature. Include your return address in the address part. Send it via Creative Occupation postcard sending facility as instructed.
2. Receive: Though postal mail you will receive the postcard back from the island with a message.
3. Another postcard: In several months, not sooner than five months, and not later than one year thereafter you will be sent one more Creative Occupation postcard, - it will be from the next series and will include further instructions.
Your address here will be used for only one more postcard!
We will update this website for the continuation of the Postcard Project.
Data collection and use:
Creative Occupation / Postcard Project is organized and managed as part of artistic research activity by Marita Batna, a PhD student of Monash University (Melbourne), Faculty of Art Design and Architecture (MADA).
Postcard Project is a communication scheme that depends on its users and I want to make sure that it is ethical. I’d like to inform you about the use of your personalized postcard sent through Creative Occupation postcard sending facility.
The postcard that you send is collected into a box in the gallery space – the box is solid and elevated so that its content is not accessible for other participants. Your message on the postcard may be used for documentation and inspiration within Creative Occupation and may be published in a project’s book or similar publication. Your name or address will not be disclosed or used for any other purpose than to register your postal details and send you one more postcard as a follow-up within the communication scheme.
By sending your postcard through Creative Occupation postcard sending facility, you are giving us your consent to use it in this way. After the release of all postcard series (no more than three) and their sending through the project, your postal data will be deleted from the project’s records.
Concerns and contact information
If you have any enquiries, concerns, or complaints about the conduct of Creative Occupation / Postcard Project, please do not hesitate to contact Marita +61 (0)425 326 728, marita.batna[at]gmail.com.
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