From Cantrill's Film Notes.
published November 1979, Nos 31, 32, pp 46, 47,

 

Sand Memories at Durras at Broome Street

Arthur Wicks....

Sand Memories began as a private exploration of some sand dunes on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. I photographed them twice a year over four years.  I felt that I was coming to terms with the changes that I was witnessing – more than just observing the effects of rain, wind and heat on the sand particles.

My activities on the sand dunes developed. I buried, at one point in time, earlier photographs taken the dunes.  Over a period of several years these photographs reappeared, but with the original information totally transformed by the dunes themselves.  They had digesters their own history.  From this emerged the performance "Sand Memories at Durras".  On the Gallery floor ritual activities were developed using sand, water and the photos of the dunes.  The performance took place around a large canvas on which sand has been glued.  Simultaneously, there was shown a pre-taped video of the photographs being buried in the dunes. (See lower monitors below.  The upper monitors show the Gallery performance as does the still on the facing page. The lower two monitors show the photo images ready to be buried).

While in New York in 1977, I had the idea of transposing my ideas and sentiments from "Sand Memories at Durras" onto an intersection of that city.  It was as if that metropolis, with all the commercial and social agglomeration associated with it, had sprung from the sand.  I wanted to reverse the process; to excavate back to its foundations.  In practical terms this had to be done through a process of the imagination – within one's mental space.

From this came the performance "Sand Memories at Durras at Broome St".

(Photography by Jill Collier, taken during the performance at the Sculpture Centre, Sydney, 1979 Biennale Alternatives.)

 

NB: This text was extracted from the Sand Memories entry in the booklet "Berliner Notizen".