ICS Seminar - Gay Hawkins and Denis Byrne

Thinking with Christo’s Wrapped Coast: Plastic, Geology and the Anthropocene

Event Details:

Date and Time: Thursday, 25 August, 11:30am - 1:00pm

Location: Building EB, Level 3, Room 06 (EB.3.06), Parramatta South Campus, Western Sydney University

Panellists: Gay Hawkins and Denis Byrne

Abstract

In 1969 Bulgarian artist Christo and his partner Jeanne-Claude came to Australia to develop an artwork that involved wrapping a large section of Sydney’s sandstone coastline at Little Bay in plastic geofabric. The artwork was known as The Wrapped Coast and is regarded as launching large scale public art in Australia. 50 years later, Gay, who works on plastics, and Denis, who works on sandstone seawalls, started talking about this artwork that seemed ‘made for them’ in terms of the way it resonated with their own work. This seminar extends this conversation. We are interested in the philosophical, technical and aesthetic significance of wrapping things up as well as the pleasures and creativity of collective thinking. Denis turns to Deleuze’s work on the baroque fold to understand the geologic dimension of human life in Sydney, how we have wrapped ourselves in sandstone and how the stone’s propensities condition our lives. Gay turns to new debates in STS about aesthetics as lures to new experiences to connect wrapping cliffs and wrapping food in plastic. In amongst all this the anthropocene might get a mention and we also turn to a few colleagues in the room who have their own interesting insights on The Wrapped Coast. We’re not sure where we will end up but invite you to share in the ride.

Biographies

Gay Hawkins is a Research Professor in the ICS who works on plastics, material politics, waste and the environmental humanities.

Denis Byrne is a Professor at the ICS who works across the fields of archaeology, critical heritage studies and the environmental humanities.