Our first Testimonial came when we asked this inspiring educator to be our first 'Legacy of Care' Guest
I full heartedly agree with your concept of inspiring people to change and protect the magic of our environment. Of reminding us to value what is so important of what is quite frankly the real joy of life.I am so excited you are doing this and over the moon to be asked to be the first Legacy of Care guest. My goodness of course we would LOVE that. What a huge compliment. What an exciting project to be part of and it really hits our core values.
Kate Wilson Mulberry Mongoose 12 Oct 2019
Land Biography of the Liverpool Plains
Dr Robbie van Hemert
"Majestic Food Plains ...A Land Biography"
Highlighting Artworks from the Exhibition
This Land Biography of the Liverpool Plains Region of NSW was exhibited at the National Trust Centre in Sydney in March 2015. It involved a 3-year research project undertaken with environmental scientists, farmers and local community to raise awareness for this threatened major Australian Food Bowl, and to provide an opportunity for farmers to talk to city folk about what is really going on out here in the bush with our food sources, which are being relentlessly threatened by coal and gas mining.
The Land Biography artwork highlights the Botanical Crop Collection, Crop Studies Collection, Herbarium Collections, charts, geographical works, and landscapes of the region to help the wider Australian community understand why this area is such an outstanding food producing resource, and one that should never be compromised!
The research now serves as a reference for all our Food River Station Projects on the Liverpool Plains.
Photo: Peter Scott
Remember, these inspiring 'educators' are people who have deeply connected with a place, seen its beauty and understood its value, and in response they have set about building a legacy to persuade others to care for it.
So we have asked each educator
How do you persuade people to care?
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CONNECTION TO THIS PLACE?
As a farmer I appreciate its agricultural quality. As an artist I love its beauty. As a research-artist/Land Biographer I wanted to understand it - why are there vast treeless plains and treed islands? What are these mountains around its rim? What are the precious, shallow aquifers they speak of. More importantly why is it such an amazing food producing region? I felt a need to connect with it! But I wasn't ready for how deeply I would connect!
WHAT DID YOU FIND SO BEAUTIFUL ABOUT THIS PLACE?
From an artist’s point of view I found being out on these Majestic Food Plains to be both an inspiring and a humbling experience. In fact, an absolute privilege! Imagine… an extensive horizontal treeless landscape scattered with islands and ridges, not unlike a vast seascape. The sea representing the expansive seedbed of immaculate rows of seedlings planted inches apart as far as the eye can see to a vanishing point on the horizon, ever changing with time, to become a prolific, massive expanse of colour and texture. Magically, and as if from nowhere, appear the magnificent maturing seed heads that ultimately become our food. This is big food country, large scale food production at its best!
WHAT MAKES YOUR PLACE SO VALUABLE?
Given that this one place feeds so many and that food is essential to our survival both in the short term, and the long term,we need this place! Remember the question I came to the Plains to answer? What should this place mean to everyday Australians? Here’s my answer -
We should value our intimate connection with this food bowl.
We should be humbled by her generosity!
We should be willing to take responsibility for her care.
She should be part of the legacy we leave our children.
For this Great Mother Food Bowl just gives and gives and gives to the benefit of us all!
HOW ARE YOU BUILDING YOUR LEGACY TO GENERATE CARE?
The crop botanicals, herbarium collections, and individual crop studies, mainly on the 5 main 'Grains of the Plains' – canola, wheat, sunflowers, corn, and sorghum are now part of a 'Liverpool Plains Legacy.' But, I was so taken with the cotton flower and buds, I just had to include cotton in the individual crop studies! The resources from the 3 years of research now serve as a reference for the Food Bowl Education Unit, and other awareness-raising projects highlighting the importance of the Plains. The artwork also inspires our products.
We believe that connecting with a place is fundamental
to caring for it
Factual information is a large component in appealing to conscience, but the real carrying power to persuade people to care comes through a different element, and on another plane. It comes through feelings, through stirring emotions, through sensitivity.
I chose my projects accordingly....
Art exhibition spaces, for example, make wonderful seedbeds for creating connections to place. The artist has the viewer’s full attention in an atmosphere without distraction, a penetrating moment to speak to their soul, appeal to their sensitivity, make that connection.
You might hear a viewer one day say "Oh yes, I went to an exhibition on the Liverpool Plains once, and this is definately one place that should never be compromised!"
Dr Robbie van Hemert