Olivia Hickey has spent the last three years exploring, roaming, romping and wandering through the Reserve, recently known as Cradle Mountain – Lake St Clair and Walls of Jerusalem National Park. Whilst travelling on foot and often sleeping in a tent she has collected impressions leaving the land mostly undisturbed and investigated new ways of responding to and working in place. This exhibition of jewellery, photography and monoprint is her response to the diversity of place and echoes the stories written in the rocks and the ancient plants.
The Reserve is a vulnerable landscape; due to both human recreational use and the far reaching and devastating impact that fire will have due to a changing climate. Olivia captures the intimate details of land as it is now and in doing so creates permanent records of impermanent places. She creates talismans that connect people to the ephemeral elements of place and when placed on the landscape of the body they are in turn a tangible reminder of the place from which they originally came.
Olivia Hickey
Designers, Jewellers, Visual artists
Olivia has worked in the field of outdoor and environmental education/Interpretation for over twenty years. Her interest of making jewellery was sparked through a chance meeting with a South American jeweller whilst she was travelling in Africa. This ignited a passion left to simmer whilst she was focused on extended journeys in remote environments. A serious injury left her unable to carry a pack for a number of years and in the void her love of making was rekindled. She moved to Tasmania in 2013 in order to study and completed an Advanced Diploma of Visual Arts (Jewellery). Her work is influenced by the concepts of sculpture, land art, wilderness photography, environmental education, conservation and the discourse in contemporary jewellery.
Impressions from the Reserve
3718 Cradle Mountain Road, Cradle Mountain TAS, Australia
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