Silent Night

BACKGROUND Silent Night is an installation contributing to an emerging body of local and internatioal contemporary still life visual art work that engages with ecological themes. Through Silent Night, Cleary and Nguyen seek to contribute to a strand of creative practice, including that by Fiona Hall (Aust), Janet Laurence (Aust), and Claire Morgan (UK), which explores the fragility and transience of life as related to animal extinction and environmental change. Silent Night had its antecedence in Silent River, an earlier work that homaged the dying Murray River, and was exhibited at the RMIT Project Space-Spare Room in 2011. CONTRIBUTION Using mixed media, including ceramics and sound, the Silent Night installation aims to provoke public awareness of the issue of habitat removal and its impact on species extinction. The installation references a range of aspects of Australian ecology, environmental history and contemporary environmental concerns. SIGNIFICANCE Silent Night was selected for exhibition at Craft Victoria by a peer review panel that included the CEO and curator of Craft Victoria, Joe Pascoe. Works displayed at Craft Victoria are selected on the basis of their conceptual innovation, display of craft skills and artist reputation. The exhibition catalogue included an essay by Pascoe and the exhibition was endorsed and opened by Jason Smith, director of the Heide Museum of art.