One of the most pleasant surprises (I had several) in Sydney in September-Spring was Jeannie Baker's Belonging. I went to the Australian Museum and there was an exhibition going on concerning local ecology; Belonging was a work exhibited.
It's basically a series of mixed-media framed paintings. They look like georamas, only not entirely three-dimensional. Painted and fabricated on the same perspective, they represent the landscape a girl sees through her own bedroom window and its diachronical transformation.
It begins when a young couple moves into their new house. The wife is pregnant. A new baby is born and this baby girl will be our heroine. The work follows the girl's growth at two-years intervals. Tracy grows up, the family's garden changes, and so does the whole neighborhood. At first (in Tracy's younger years) a rather run-down, barren, cityscape, the area transforms gradually toward green, attractive, conformable neighborhood with people's efforts. By the time she's 22 and gets married it's an eden. The work finishes with Tracy, now with her own baby and husband, moves into a new house and opens a "local plant specialist" shop called Tracy's Forest.
The work is so understated, but it gives an eloquent sense of greening of one's own local habitat. A true masterpiece filled with hope. It keeps on telling: "Your land is where you are at now. Take good care of it. " A great work of re-inhabitational imaginary!
The work is published as a book (Walker Books, 2004). If you haven't decided upon this year's Christmas presents, this will be a fine idea, c'est moi qui le dit!
