BRAD DARKSON

Artist Statement

old light (refraction)

2016

 

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The video work old light (refraction) stems from research into different modes of knowledge and the time scales in which they are situated. Inspired by a news article linking scientific discovery and First Nations Australian oral history, this work distils a 1,200km journey taken by a cabbage palm seed some 30,000 years ago into a single minute. 

 

In relation to the human inability to fully understand deep time, First Nations Bunorong/Kulin writer Bruce Pascoe states “sixty-five thousand years is forever”[1]. This notion resonates with the concept of linkages between deep time and the present moment, as found in old light (refraction). The work encompasses notions of solid and fluid, of static and motion, intimating the multiple ways knowledge is dispersed across space and time. By projecting onto large public spaces interstate and internationally, a temporal shadow of the work is briefly transposed onto the wall and witnessed in a fleeting moment in the bystander’s life. 

 

[1]Pascoe, B., 2014. Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?. Magabala Books.