Ben Apfelbaum

JONATHON JONES’ BARRANGUL DYARA (skin and bones) @ BOTANICAL GARDENS

Jonathan Jones’ barrangal dyara (skin and bones) marks the 32nd Kaldor Public Art Project and the first by an Australian Aboriginal artist.

In Barrangal dyara thousands of bleaches white shields delineate the footprint of the Garden Palace and echo the expansive rubble that remained after the fire of 1882. Based on four typical designs from Aboriginal nations of the south-east, these shields not only raise the chalky bones of the building, but speak to the thousands of shields that would have had cultural presence. The shields in Barrangal dyara are on masse of unique ochre markings or personal designs, speaking to the erasure of cultural complexities through collection.The international exhibition that took place in the Garden Palace became  Sydney’s’ cultural centre and housed many collections. Not only did it hold early Aboriginal collections, but it was the foundation for all the cultural institutions in Sydney – collections including the New South Wales Arts Society, the Technological and Mining Museum, the New South Wales Branch of the Linnean Society, and the Colonial Archives. Jonathan Jones has thought about this loss and postulates that the trauma of losing the Garden Palace was so profound that it has forced its erasure from Sydney’s’ collective consciousness. Jones also sees the fire as a kind of cultural burn in a way that cleaned the site from its imperial vision which was inappropriate for Sydney.

Language is an important element of the project. Barrangal dyara peals back the ‘skin’ of the site to reveal ‘the bones’ of the Garden Palace. Horizontally it stretched from the north western section of the Domain to the Conservatorium.

The Project is physically made up of three components : the native meadow of kangaroo grass at the heart of the building, thousands of white shields  marking the buildings’ original perimeter, and several soundscapes made in collaboration with south-eastern communities.

Barrangal dyara (skin and bones), the 32nd Kaldor Public Art Project, took place within the Botanical Gardens between the 17th September and the 3rd October, 2016.

All images by Ben Apfelbaum (c). Featured image Artistic Director Jonathon Jones.

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.