Clare McCracken

“...the boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea…”. (Foucault 1967)

On the 21st of July 2018, Clare boarded the ANL Wahroonga container ship and steamed from Australia to China – dwelling in motion for 13 days.  The route roughly mirrored that of her great-great-grandmother who travelled from Australia to Asia in 1874, a family narrative that has been passed down between generations in the form of a well-thumbed diary written during her adventure. 

The Place Between artworks are a meditation upon the social, environmental and political implications of international trade, the mobility of women and the place between Australia and the rest of the world in the 19th and 21st century. It is part of a series of projects that explore the impact of mobility systems (cars, planes, mobile texhnology and ships) on Australia; and the way in which they have, and continue to, shape our connection to environments, our sense of time and social relationships. It combined performance, photography, story telling and film to create a mixed media series of works which wound together the artists contemporary expedition on the ship with that of her great-great-grandmother. In doing so it created a poetic, generational image of the place we generally fly over – the place much of contemporary Australia ignores – between Australia and the rest of the world.

The Place Between by Clare McCracken; performance documentation by Andrew Ferris, 2018. Exhibited at the Mission to Seafarers, Melbourne (2018) and WORD OF MOUTH, Venice (2019) a Venice Biennale pop-up curated by Peter Hill. Works from The Place Between were shortlisted for the Mission to Seafarers Maritime Art Prize (2020), the Darebin Art Prize for Excellence in Contemporary Visual Art (2019) and the Nillumbik Art Prize (2019). An artist book documenting Clare’s journey is housed in the State Library of Victoria’s rare books collection.

In the early 1980s Clare’s father took the Alpine Shire and the small township of Myrtleford (Victoria, Australia) to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, contesting the proposed construction of a 17-metre concrete snowman. The big snowman reflects the anxiety of identity experienced by rural Australian towns after the construction of the post Second World War road networks. As they lost their train-lines and were bypassed or driven though, many Australian towns felt like they were slipping off the map of Australia and fading into economic ruin. The big snowman was part of a tradition, inherited from the United States, of big sculptures in small townships, designed to put these communities on the tourist map by trapping the passing car in awe. Ultimately, McCracken’s father was successful and the giant snowman was never built; however, an estimated 300 ‘big things’ were installed from the 1960s on, and many still line Australian rural roadsides.

The fight over the giant snowman was lengthy and vicious: a conflict that gave Clare her first nickname – “Snowman Killer” – which plagued her early years of school. Snowman Killer combines performance, sculpture, photography, film and storytelling to present the archive from the original snowman controversy, Clare’s memories of the ordeal and a 7500 km road trip she took with a big carrot – a to-scale representation of the nose of the never constructed snowman – across Australia visiting ‘big things’. In doing so the work explores the settler-colonial, architectural, social, emotional, gendered and environmental impact of the car on rural Australia throughout the second half of the 20th century.

Outcomes for this project have included exhibitions, a series of performance lectures presented in Australia at the Benalla Art Gallery and the United Kingdom and a book manuscript which was shortlisted for the Hardie Grant Spark Prize for narrative non-fiction.

To access the narrative nonfiction essay - Mobility Humanities

Lead artist, writer and producer Clare McCracken / photographic documentation of performances Andrew Ferris / Video Documentation and Editing - Jim Arneman / Music - Golden Hour written and composed by Nick Huggins / Props and Costume - Andrew Ferris, Mattea Davies & Clare McCracken.

The Becalmed Heart is a large-scale immersive installation that invites audiences to enter a world created from refuse. It is a meditation upon our waste and the impact of human intervention on nature. Inspired by images of vast plastic islands floating across the surface of the ocean, landfill sites and the work of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky this project attempts to capture the grotesque beauty of devastated landscapes.

“…calm and shocking. …It is a powerful reflection on consumption, mass consumerism and our impact on environment. A strong, vivid comment about our relationship with nature and the impact of climate change, executed in the most brutally beautiful way.” – Fenella Kernebone

The Becalmed Heart, 2015. Creative producer and direction by Brienna Macnish / key collaborator and visual design by Clare McCracken / key collaborator and sound design and composition by Robert Jordan / lighting design by Christopher Page.

The Becalmed Heart was developed with support from Underbelly Arts and premiered at Underbelly Festival, 2015. It was supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and by the City of Melbourne through the Arts House 4 Walls initiative.

Photographs by Vikk Shayen

Our city is in a state of flux: climate change, rapid population growth, housing affordability, technological advances such as driverless cars and shifts in the labour market are all gearing up to permanently change both the look of our city and how we inhabit it. Over four weeks Clare, and a team of collaborators, transformed an ordinary suburban house inside and out creating an immersive installation that transported audiences to the end of this century to experience the future of the Australian suburbs.

The work contemplated how domestic routines, interpersonal relationships and the fabric of the house itself will adapt to a post carbon world affected by climate change, extreme weather events, population increase and new technologies such as driverless cars and virtual reality. The work is informed by the work of sociologists, contemporary philosophers and cultural theorists such as John Urry, Anthony Elliott, Tim Cresswell, Manual Castels, Rosi Braidotti and Paul Virilio, but also by Melbourne’s history of planning, development and environmental policy.

Section 32 would not have been possible without the support of the following people and organisations: John Smart from Smart Graffiti, RMIT School of Art in Public Space, Andrew Ferris, Chris McCracken, Kate McCracken, Hannah Macnish, John Twyford, Molly Warren, Kurt Luttin, Sue Shee, Martin Brennan, Marcia Ferguson, Patrick McCarthy, Michael Hearn, Martin Buden and the residents of Rose Avenue, Boronia.

Section 32, 2016. Lead artist, creative producer and writer Clare McCracken / key collaborator, performance director and performance writer Brienna Macnish / key collaborator, sound designer, composer and technology designer Robert Jordan / associate artist, creator of the Black Room Jessie Stanley / performer & devisor Kasey Gambling / performer & devisor Isabella Vadiveloo / performer and devisor Ernesto Munoz / performer, message from mars Paul Blenheim / production assistant Andrew Ferris. Section 32 was commissioned by Knox City Council and has been assisted by an anonymous donor.

This work was awarded the 2019 RMIT University Research Award in the Higher Degree by research – Impact category due to its contribution to Knox City Council’s Environmental, Planning and Public Art processes.

Photographs by Rhiannon Slatter and Andrew Ferris.

Clare used Google street view to explore the layers, textures and tones of Havana. The panoramic photographs that she found were filled with tiny glitches – faces morphed into cobblestones, dogs congealed with humans and the shadow of the photographer cutting across façades. These glitches represented the edge of the internet, a moment unmapped where anything was possible. Pixel-by-pixel Clare converted the glitches into pocket-sized cross-stitches before travelling to Havana where she completed the embroidery on the original site. In the photographs of her site-specific stitching her body now blocks the information that the glitches once covered - a fragment of the city remains unmapped, a place where anything is possible.

By Clare McCracken with Andrew Ferris, 2019. Exhibited as part of Intercambio, curated by Damien Smith for the Bienal de la Habana 2019.

This audiovisual work was created during an online residency with the Walking Library and the Museum of Loss & Memory. I was partnered with an artist based in London, who was moving about her city freely, as Melbourne officially became the most locked down city in the world. We shared readings from Ursula Le Guin and Virginia Woolf using the audio function on WhatsApp; the sounds of our respective cities captured in the background. This work was written in response to the recorded readings, but also the 260-days I had spent confined to my inner-city apartment.

VILLAGE is an immersive audio installation created over twelve months in collaboration with the residents of retirement communities in Launceston, Tasmania. VILLAGE takes you past the manicured lawns and behind the lace curtains to find out what life in a retirement village is really like.

Tasmania’s population is the oldest in Australia and it’s ageing the fastest. While the media prints headlines about the state’s immanent transformation into a “retirement island” VILLAGE asks, “Would that really be such a bad thing?”

VILLAGE sits within a context of significant social change and at its heart the project seeks to foster intergenerational empathy and connection. Through an audio-documentary that shares the stories of older people, and participatory events that bring a younger audience into the world of retirement village living, VILLAGE is a gesture towards how intergenerational connection within our communities might begin.

VILLAGE, 2015-16. Lead artist, creative producer and writer Brienna Macnish / key collaborator and visual designer Clare McCracken / key collaborator, sound designer, composer and technology designer Robert Jordan.

VILLAGE was commissioned by Junction Arts Festival and has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. This project is also supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria. Our project partners are, Word of Mouth Technology Melbourne, All About Gardens Launceston, and BMW Launceston, our venue partner.

Photographs by Lucy Productions and Andrew Ferris.

In the late eighteen hundreds, Charles Baudelaire felt that the traditional arts were inadequate when it came to recording his rapidly industrialising city.  Baudelaire argued that artists should immerse themselves in the metropolis and become ‘a botanist of the sidewalk’.  The tool for this interaction was the flâneur – a way of strolling slowly through the city aimlessly ‘in order to experience it’ - to walk at the pace of a tortoise. 

Adopting these concepts, and reflecting on the safety of the female body in Melbourne’s streets post Jill Meagher’s violent death,  Clare became part tortoise, part dandy (part endangered spices, part urban explorer) and went on a series of long, slow walks. Over four weeks she walked from Federation Square to the Melbourne Ports, the International Airport and 30km up the Yarra River to Darebin Creek. As she strolled she documented what she saw turning her lengthy adventure into an artist book.

A month after her exploration of the city Clare occupied Federation Square, handing her artist book to the people she met as a record of her lengthy participation on the streets of Melbourne. As Clare moved about the square a film played on the big screen documenting her evolution from ordinary woman to dandy tortoise.

By Clare McCracken, 2013. Commissioned by Federation Square. This work was also recommissioned by Melbourne City Council and RMIT Univeristy to interrogate the safety of Hosier Lane as part of Urban Lab, curated by Fiona Hillary.

Are you searching for something different to enjoy with your family and friends? Do you need a unique gift for an inquisitive mind? Or are you going to need to entertain children on a rainy day? Squishy Taylor and the City-Wide Ghost Plague is your answer!

Squishy Taylor has a mystery to solve and she needs your help! Ghosts are appearing across the city and Squishy Taylor, 11-year-old ninja-spy and super-sleuth, is hot on their trail. But without her all-important twin bonus sisters Jessie and Vee as backup, Squishy urgently requires your assistance! Follow the clues, solve the puzzles and help Squishy unravel the secret behind these phantom visions.

Undertaken from the comfort of your home, this experience has been crafted by artists to be perfect family entertainment. Complete the puzzles, unlock the next chapter and get one step closer to solving the mystery.

Squishy Taylor and the City-Wide Ghost Plague is inspired by Ailsa Wild’s much-loved Squishy Taylor junior fiction book series. It is perfect for ages 7 and above.

Delivered direct to your door by post. Once it has arrived, begin your adventure at any time you choose.

“SUPER COOL AND EXCITING! A GREAT BRAIN BUSTER WITH SO MANY UNIQUE ELEMENTS”

— Mamma Knows

To order your copy follow this link!

Lead Artists: Brienna Macnish and Simon Bedford / Key Collaborator, Text: Michele Lee / Key Collaborator, Design: Clare McCracken / Storyline support: Ailsa Wild /Production support: Rebecca Etchell / Producer: Simon Bedford for The Inhabitors / Auspicing/Administrative support: Auspicious Arts Projects / Voice of Squishy Taylor: Senuri Chandrani / Other voices: Benji Groenewegen / Photography: Theresa Harrison / Filming/Editing: Alana Thompson for Black Ant Films / Video animation: Cordelia Brown / Photo/Video Shoot Production Assistant: Dylan Michel.

Developed with the assistance of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation, the Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and amplified by Melbourne Fringe as part of the Cash For Creatives Program. This work was nominated for the Best Work in Festival Award at the Fringe Festival Melbourne, 2021.

Adapted from the Squishy Taylor series written by Ailsa Wild, illustrated by Ben Wood and published by Hardie Grant.

The Department of Transport commissioned Clare and Aslam Akram to develop a repeatable mural for a series of new substations constructed as part of the Sunbury Electrification Rail Project.  Originally from Afghanistan, Akram creates abstract paintings through the cropping and reconfiguration of the languages he speaks.  Clare and he applied this methodology to the language of electronics displayed on the switchboards housed within the substations.   The resulting 37m long murals, located in an urban growth corridor, sat boldly on the grass hills of growing Melbourne, waiting for the construction of housing and industrial estates to envelop them.

By Clare McCracken and Aslam Akram, 2012. Commissioned by Department of Transport and RMIT University. Jackson Hill, Diggers Rest and Holden Road, Melbourne.

A moving, immersive, mixed-media, performance installation, exploring the imprint of violence against women by bringing one woman’s dark and unsettling story to life.  The work explored the loss, courage and resilience of women and families exposed to violence and encouraged audience members to reexamine what they see, hear and believe.

The Locker Room was originally commissioned by Knox City Council and exhibited at the Knox Festival, 2014. It has been re-exhibited by the City of Casey, City of Boroondara and the City of Manningham.

Designer, writer and key collaborator Clare McCracken / Creative Producer Jeremy Angerson / Director Naja Kostich / Sound Designer Michael Carmody / Lighting Designer Rachel Burke.

Inspired by Jeffery Smart's surreal urban landscapes, and the backdrop of the Eastlink motorway, Speed Cheek transforms the infrastructure of motor vehicle control into a site for play.  Two solar powered LED screens hover above a shared-user path recording and projecting the speed of pedestrians and cyclists as they ride, run, walk and cartwheel.  A smiley face follows each speed because these devices are not there to control but encourage – go slow, go fast, or go medium-paced and Speed Check will give you a big grin!

By Clare McCracken, 2008. Permanent installation Oakwood Park, Noble Park. Commissioned by City of Greater Dandenong and ConnectEast.