Fashion Design Lab Magazine
february 2012 | nº 05
  From Australia to Prato following the mark of a Possum - The Maree Clarke's Dream
Prato, Monash University - Palazzo Vai, via Pugliesi 26 | 24 april - 4 may 2012
Simonetta Doni
 
   

For Aboriginal Australians the world existed even before its actual creation, in a dimension called "Dreamtime". Thanks to special sacred people, whether animals or humans, making certain actions, such as hunting or dancing, or singing, and leaving a trace in the real world we inhabit, the world has taken its shape. From the passing through of these figures sprang up seas, mountains, rivers, rocks, trees. This experience of the Dreamtime, is not finished yet, it's all around us, for example, whenever a dream gives us an explanation or directions to follow, and then bring out a piece of the world. So it's not hard to understand how much is "sacred" in the relationship between Aboriginal people and the nature surrounding them, and every action is considered as participating a ritual. It is not hard to see that forgetting "dreams" and forgetting the capacty of handing down, condemn man to lose himself and the world around him.

Maree Clarke is a fair and generous daughter of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal tribe in the southeast of Australia. She is an artist. Her dream is to travel through her country searching on the marks given by nature, such as branches of trees or kangaroo teeth, and to rediscover the Aboriginal rites that still survive.
She reclaim this heritage and deliver it to young and senior people both, for they can rediscover the meaning and the memory and so, help the world carrying on.
With the teeth of kangaroo She has created a work represented by a series of 75 teeth. With the branches of the "bush" has created an installation.

Then She took the colors of the earth, red ocher to brown and black, and with other Aboriginal artists, taught back to the tribes of Southeast Australia to decorate the inside of the skins of Possum, making the tipical cloaks covering themselves and where they were buried. The map of the interior decorations of the coat of skins of Possum defines the world of its owner, its geographical indications, rivers, mountains, people who live there and their costumes, with hunting scenes, and animals killed, and the rituals concerning.

The Monash University ten years ago came in Europe building a cultural bridge with Australia, by opening an headquarters in the historic city of Prato. In 2012 they invited Maree Clarke as "Artist in Residence", and last march, She took a group of people from Prato and, as She had done with the Aboriginal community, invited them to regain the memory of their city and to fix it on many panels to tail a regenerated wool coat, with the colors of the earth Australia, which is so much closer to our Crete Senesi.

The result is a bond between the discovery of signs, colors and techniques of Aboriginal and the forms, stories, suggestions of Prato. Then it is important to understand that the values are the same, such as the deep sense of family, the place where adults and children work togheter to a cloak of possum the same they do here in Prato working to their woolen cloak.
And then the strange figures of men painted in caves in Australia no longer seems so different from man by Leonardo printed on our coin 1 Euro.
The result of this experience, put beside some new paintings by Maree Clarke, will be shown from April 24 at Palazzo Vai, the headquarters of the Monash University in Prato.

After rebuilding the "Dream of Prato", helping us to make our living world, Maree will fly back to Her country. She is gong to organize a new project to recover the memory of Aboriginal people, linked to a ritual mourning, where some members will be called to make and wear a traditional headdress, weighing over seven pounds, the same the relatives of the deceased used to do for a few weeks to honor their memory and make concrete and real their pain for the loss. A pain in all ancient societies gave rise to rituals and art forms to which everybody are called to participate.
Sharing art can help the world to continue its journey in communion with all the elements of nature. This is Maree's message.
So, Maree's Dream goes on.

Info Exhibition:
Ritual and ceremony
Maree Clarke, Aboriginal Artists
Vernissage: 24 april 2012 | h 18.00-19.30
Apertura: from 24 april to 4 may 2012
Opening: from 09.00 am to 05.30 pm (closed 25 april and the week end)
Free entrance
Monash University Prato Centre
Palazzo Vai, via Pugliesi, 26, Prato
www.monash.it | tel. 0574 43691

From Australia to Prato following the mark of a Possum - The Maree Clarke's Dream | Prato, Monash University - Palazzo Vai,  via Pugliesi 26 | 24 april - 4 may 2012 From Australia to Prato following the mark of a Possum - The Maree Clarke's Dream | Prato, Monash University - Palazzo Vai,  via Pugliesi 26 | 24 april - 4 may 2012 From Australia to Prato following the mark of a Possum - The Maree Clarke's Dream | Prato, Monash University - Palazzo Vai,  via Pugliesi 26 | 24 april - 4 may 2012
 
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