This quote means so much to me. It encapsulates the very reason for eventually undertaking a PHD in Creative Practice, which was to use my art as a communication tool for environments that needed to have their story told. These can be places of great beauty, generous places, places we need for both physical and emotional reasons, and often they are under threat. I wanted to attempt to represent the beauty in their story in such a way that others would be inspired by it, enough to care.

 

I was aware that we cannot continue to dictate care for a place if people have no connection to it. So my PhD research involved exploring the philosophy, connecting with a place is fundamental to caring for it, and indeed if this is the case, how to establish this all-important critical connection in order to generate care. Through the Phd I developed a system of land recording to help establish this connection, under the Trade Mark "Land Biography".

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I became fascinated by the ‘Connection Process’ between people and places. As an artist and in a way an educator, I would need to represent a place in such a way that people could understand what it should mean to them. Factual information was a large component in appealing to their conscience, but the real carrying power to persuade people to care came through a different element, and on another plane. It came through feelings, through stirring emotions, through sensitivity. As artists, we can access sensitivity, and I feel this privilege comes with an obligation to reveal its meaning.

 

I love exploring land recording methods through illustrated leather-bound journals, archival quality papers, and mixed-media. I love sourcing meaningful places, the integrity of leaving places in better condition than we found them, the comfort of generational inheritances, and the positivity of creating legacies. I am passionate about rural Australia and world natural environments, particularly Africa. Yet strangely it is only now on my journey that I have come to see my Land Biographies as 'Legacies of Care.'

 

I love projects big and small such as the Liverpool Plains Legacy depicted in the macro 14ft pencil panorama above. These PROJECTS have reached their goal posts because of the generous sponsorship made by like minded carers. I can't thank them enough!

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As special as these bigger projects have been, there is so much I've yet to learn and do that I feel the urge to move on. 

 

You see I believe that beauty is the bravest thing on earth, and as our greatest source of inspiration, I am eager to see it go on, not only day after day, but forever more!

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And I'd love your company on my journey! Perhaps you'd like to receive monthly newsletters (below) ...

 

I appreciate your interest.

 

Robbie van Hemert

 

NOTE: On the use of the word ‘Educator” in this context -

“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.

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