(updated June 2013)

After the Fire, Bimblebox Nature Refuge, 2012, photo by Jill Sampson

Bimblebox Art Project

The aim of this art project is to highlight the threat to the continuation of the Bimblebox Nature Refuge, to document Bimblebox creatively and to show Australians what we are at risk of losing.  As we have learned more about the proposed coal mine developments for the Galilee Basin we have begun to realise the greater threat to life on Earth from generated carbon emissions if Galilee Basin coal is exported and burnt.

A diverse group of artists, drawn from various parts of Eastern Australia, gathered at the Bimblebox Nature Refuge in September 2012.  We spent 10 days camping on Bimblebox making art to document this part of Australia.  Our intention was to map the country and its inhabitants in our own unique way.  The resulting artworks will come together to build a dynamic exhibition of installation, works on paper, painting, artist books, digital storytelling and sound.  We are in the process of developing the artwork into a national touring exhibition to begin mid 2014.

A satellite exhibition called Document://Bimblebox was held in Launceston Tasmania during April 2013.

Bimblebox Nature Refuge represents an ark of life in this semi-arid, desert uplands environment.  This is 8000 hectares of native bushland which sustains complex ecosystems of plant and animal life.  The majority of this property has never been cleared.  This landscape and its land forms exist as they have existed for thousands of years. This long history will end if Waratah Coal is given the green light to develop the open cut coal mine which the company has named “China First”.

Art and science has always shared an alliance.  Bimblebox Nature Refuge is a low-impact cattle property and the site of ongoing research in native ecology and sustainable grazing practices.  Artists draw from historical texts, flora and fauna surveys, and studies of animal tracks and behaviour and being on country to creatively map this area and its inhabitants. Through our art we will bear witness to this place, its past and its future.

Some of the original artists and also new artists, along with our curator Beth Jackson plan to visit Bimblebox Nature Refuge in September 2013.  We are  in the planning stages of this visit and if you are an artist who may be interested in visiting Bimblebox please get in touch with Jill at bimbleboxartproject@javitas.com.au