Arc Biennial of Art 2009

Fort Lytton was used throughout the first and second world wars and even earlier to defend our city against possible enemy invasion and was a key quarantine centre through which many members of our multicultural community passed through on their entry to Australia.

Download the program and invite for this event

Saturday November 14th
Late afternoon into evening

The Interpretations of place and history on Saturday November 14th by these key artists, many of whom exhibit internationally, will provide a truly memorable exciting program with enough flexibility for both families as well as those wishing to make a night of it to have an unusual Saturday outing.

Elizabeth Woods has worked with a number of migrant women to collect recipes of cakes and will present a free afternoon tea served in a war time style café. Don’t forget to see her 2 screen video projection in the old autoclave room which houses the huge original steam machine used by Quarantine officers.

Pat Hoffie recreates a dramatic Troop Drill with members of local pony clubs against the backdrop of historical images projected onto the fort.

Megan Cope reminds us of the indigenous history of the site and the war fought by Aboriginals at the beginning of colonisation with her haunting sound work and night time projection.

Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan create strange contemporary yet archaic instruments in various rooms of the fort to enable us to look closely at the deep history embedded in the markings on the walls.

Plus: Quarantine, an installation of ‘outsiders’ which not only celebrates diversity in all its forms but also champions and fosters it in a world that is threatened by conformity and control. The installation throws a spotlight on the way Fort Lytton residents were temporarily quarantined in the back room and striated according to their status as first, second or ‘cattle class’ passengers for fear of infectious diseases or contaminants they may have been carrying.

Sunday November 15th
10am – 4pm

Sunday’s program features a keynote series of performances called Getting The Message Through At All Costs by Victorian artists Aleks Danko and Jude Walton. The performances are staged to coincide with the normal Fort Lytton volunteer tours taken by the Fort Lytton Historical Association.

Getting The Message Through At All Costs responds to the architectural features of the buildings and environs of Fort Lytton: the enclosure and containment of the Fort, the underground, almost entombed quality of the corridors and rooms, their acoustic properties, and the ways they inter-connect/intersect—juxtaposed with the surrounding large, open landscape of sky and sea.

These spaces are re-activated by the introduction of site-specific objects and live performers to create a circular palimpsest of actions, sounds, objects, images, scenarios, that the audience/viewer moves through constructing their own mini-narratives.
Also during your visit to Fort Lytton see works by Elizabeth Woods, Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan.

Special Preview Event
Also as a prelude to the Aleks Danko and Jude Walton performance at Fort Lytton a performance of the Orderly Bugler’s Duties by two buglers will take place in various parts of King George Square, Brisbane on Tuesday November 10 from 6am to 6pm (from ‘Reveille to Lights Out’).