The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary was instigated and co-ordinated by Melbourne-based printmaker Kate Gorringe-Smith. Here on the Coffs Coast, the project took flight and grew to involve local artists, school students, birders, ecologists, National Park rangers and even a poet – all dedicated to the goal of increasing public awareness of migratory shorebirds through art.

“Migratory shorebirds connect the world. The pathways of their migrations bind skies, land and sea into a meaningful whole. Their journeys connect us through time and space, as they have been flying between the poles for more years than humans have walked the earth.

I believe that migratory shorebirds and their Flyways are important ideas for our time. They challenge our notions of what is precious – they are small, their plumage is modest, they do not sing and their habitat is often unremarkable. But they fly unimaginable distances, their biology is so finely tuned that they can fly eight days and nights without stopping to eat or drink, they can navigate featureless oceans to find the same tiny stretch of beach, and return to it, year after year. And, in an age where human migration is often viewed as a threat to borders and resources, these tiny birds can also remind us that we are globally interdependent in a multitude of complex, subtle and ancient ways.
But time is running out. Migratory shorebirds are our most endangered, and possibly least known, group of birds. The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary seeks to raise awareness for our migratory shorebirds and their habitat by inviting artists to help make them visible.”

Kate Gorringe-Smith

This project is supported by Create NSW’s Audience Development Fund, a devolved funding program administered by Museums & Galleries of NSW on behalf of the NSW Government and BirdLife Australia

Steamroller Prints

These large-scale prints were a culmination of The Overwintering School Project, when linocuts by local high school students were printed using a 2-ton road roller during a day of “printmaking theatre”!

Local artists Sara Bowen, Jo Elliott and JP Willis worked together with 80 Year 9 and 10 students from Woolgoolga and Toormina High Schools to create linocuts of migratory shorebirds. Over the course of the project, students spent time in local shorebird habitat and worked with the artists, National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers, eco-poet John Bennett and volunteers from BirdLife Australia to learn about migratory shorebirds, once plentiful on the Coffs Coast but now threatened and endangered.

Their beautiful and thoughtful linocuts bring this global issue close to home.

Participating students and teachers:

Toormina:

Phoenyx Arnold, Will Bailey, Tori Blenman, Sharnte Cannon, Macie Gow, Macey Gray, Liam Hand, Mia Harding, Darelleigh Hickling, Freya Laidlaw, Demi Martin, Dylan O’Brien-Smith, Bree-Lily Pickering, Madison Rose, Jack Seccombe, Brooke Semenikow, Grady Spokes, Zach Stevenson, Kynan Weatherall, Chanae Winkler, Piara Yap Stokes

Mariah Anderson, Rose Astill, Tarran Calcraft, Sharnte Cannon, Nikita Drobnjak, Jharn Garic, Dylan Garner, Jared Hall, Naomi Holzigal, Shannon Jeffs​, Somayeh Khalili, Lilie Male, Tsega Okubasenbet Gebrezgabher, Kaylee Palmer, Taylor Roet, Thomas Smith, Jordy Spillman, Azura Thompson-Hope

Nicole Browning, Wendy Winkler

Woolgoolga:

Hannah Allen-Tatters, Riya Bhorla, Michaela Brauman, Kylie Chivers, Hope Christie, Ellyarne Donovan, Halle Eddy, Aysha Farrow, Kobie-Mai Fox, Emelia Garbers, Ellen Hill, Bonnie Hills, Sachpreet Kaur, Eden Kelsall, Ally Mullan, Helena Oates Herrera, Aleisha Quay, Erin Richardson, Kirandeep Singh, Marley Tith-Attard, Kiesha Viney, Alana Ward, Nathalie Warden

Jordan Alexander, Simran Bagree, Isabelle Bagust, Ashman Chaudhry, Erica Corfe, Ally Cork, Mia Decent, Charli Denblyden, Gemma Ettles, Lily Ettles, Jorja Flaherty, Darcy Gibbons, Iluka Harriman, Bonnie Henderson-Smith, Lacey Holmes, Amber-Rose Kelly, Paris Kelsall, Remi Malone, Amy Matthews, Dakota McIntosh, Alena Nieuwerth, Rachel Polgardy, Teo Ross, Mikaila Watson   

Kerrie Hall, Jacqui Harrison, Tara Hewitt

Links to the steamroller prints are viewable at the bottom of this page.

This project is supported by Create NSW’s Audience Development Fund, a devolved funding program administered by Museums & Galleries of NSW on behalf of the NSW Government and BirdLife Australia

Wall of Wings

Local artist Penelope Lawry initiated and co-ordinated the Wall of Wings as a way for local artists and art groups to become part of The Overwintering Project. Artists were invited to contribute prints of individual migratory shorebirds - which were attached directly to the gallery wall - and together they formed a magnificent Wall of Wings of the many species who visit the Coffs Coast over summer.

Contributing Artists: Tanja Ackerman, Anne Atkinson, Chels Alby Marshall, Riki Allsop, Sue Baker, Charlotte Blesing, Cher Breeze, Joelle Bridger, Warren Brisley, Christine Courcier-Jones, Toz Dadswell, Marie Dalliston, Emma Davies, Gail Day, Carli-anne Donovan, Naomi Drage, Evelyn Dunning, Lorraine Edwards, Aliosn Evans, Amelia Evans, Olivia Fairbanks, Narina Ferguson, Daniel Flanders, Ashleigh Frost, Margie Hawtin, Jo Holdsworth, Jay Howe, Sharon Geddes, Tara Geddes, Shirleen Jarrett, Rhonda Jarrett, Tina Konig, Robyn Lawrence, Penelope Lawry, Colleen Little, Rhonda Mair, Janet Marshall, Melina Murphy, Barb Newby, Tenzin Oudeman, Susie Peake, Honi Reifler, Marc Renshaw, Sue Robertson, Bronwyn Rodden, Colin Seller, Ann Sheppard, Enya Skinner, Hannah Smith, Jacqueline Smith, Ruby Spagnolo, Jendaya Stewart, Karen Thio, Juliet E. Tilson, Judi Tilyard, T'Poya, Cynthia Waite, Debra Wall, Carol Walsh, Headspace Art Group.

Print Portfolio

The heart of the Overwintering Project is the Print Portfolio. The project has been running since mid-2017 and includes works by over 250 artists from every state and territory in Australia. Participating artists visited their local migratory shorebird habitat and responded to it, fostering a genuine connection with these special places.

Every artist has donated two of each editioned print to the project, one to exhibit and one to sell to raise funds for shorebird conservation. In January 2019, the project donated $10,000 to the Australian Wader Studies Group, BirdLife Australia’s special interest group for shorebird studies and conservation.

The prints include every technique: etchings, linocuts, woodblocks, wood engravings, lithographs, waterless lithographs, stencils, stamps, digital prints and combinations of these. As well as prints, artists have contributed statements; some were moved to write poetry, or draw maps or diagrams.  You can read these on the project website.

The Overwintering Project has rallied the print community to create a visual petition to bring shorebirds and their habitat to the attention of the broader community. They have responded with an unimagined grace, generosity and enthusiasm.

www.theoverwinteringproject.com

Transmigration

This project is a Small Ocean collaboration with Jeremy Sheehan.

Transmigration is about creating a map of the migration of wedge-tailed shearwaters - our muttonbirds - at actual size.

22 muttonbird sculptures, with a skeleton of collected ocean plastic, overlaid with materials that slowly break down, were sent to individual islands in the Pacific. Artists and communities on each island made similar birds that were sent back to Australia. This swap echoes the migration of the birds and the simultaneous installation of works forms a 1:1 map of the flight path of the birds overlaid with the migration of ocean plastic. As the birds breakdown and decay, their permanent plastic skeleton is left behind, showing what is happening to the real life birds, the cultures that made them, our oceans and us.

Just like the migration of real birds, not all those sent from Coffs Harbour made it to their destination and not all those sent from the other side of the horizon made it home to us. Some were lost along the way, some were caught up in cyclones or typhoons, and others mysteriously disappeared. Most did make it, and they were displayed in 2015 at Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney to large crowds and all the weather extremities mother nature had in store for them.

The birds in the exhibition returned to their home from a long and incredible journey. We are a small part of the map - the rest of it covers hundreds of millions of square kilometres of ocean to the east of us.

Collectors and Collaborators: Susan Allen, Felix Andrews, Karawa Areieta, Lina Ariki, Rojo Balane, Johanna Beasley, Lincoln Belford, Amanda Bishop, Bruce and Jay from Belau National Museum, Busi and her class, Terri Butterworth, Sam Carter, Anna Coleman, Christine Courcier-Jones, Barbara Clerke, Deb Ireland, Sue Draper, Angela Dufty, Jo Elliott, Kirstie Frederiksen, Brooke Fenwick, George Fraser, Ebonie Fifita, Kukulynn Gallen, Helen George, Kay George, Alfred Ghemu, Tiffany Gray, Phil Greed, Rachael Green, Selena Griffith, Grace Guise-Vele, David Handley, Keith Hambrook, Courteney Henderson, Edgar Hinge, Ian Hutton, Natan Itonga, Donna Jorna, Pedro Kamong, Bernadette Keene, Marie Laure, Alamanda Lauti, Francois Le Gaffric, Michael Laspina, Ann Leonard, Colina Logar, Eloise  Lopez, Martina Lo Schiavo, Jonas Macapinlac, Litia Maiava, Pesamino Mavaega, Tammy Mills-Thom, Pia Morei, Ashley Munro, Julie Nash, Daryle Newman, Suzanne Nitschke, Armand Orsolino, Macha Paris, Sama Penaia, Martin Quinn, Bridget Rees, Carolyn Remmerswaal, Ginny Retmock, Ray Rixon, Chester Saick, Tony Schaefer, Jack Sheehan, Jeremy Sheehan, Judy Sheehan, Kathy Sheehan, Ken Sheehan, Phil Simpson, Tracy Smithers, Alexandra Sticpewich, Tamarama SLSC, Vanya Taule’alo, Teweiariki Teaero, Arthur Toms, Matini Vailopa, Tino Vitale, Philip Wadds, Ann Walton, Veronika Wasse.

BookArtObject

BookArtObject is an informal group of book artists scattered around the globe who make small editions of handmade artists' books in response to texts, sharing them with each other and the world. With Edition Five - exhibited as part of The Overwintering Project - ten of the founding members of the BookArtObject collective collaborated on artists books in response to the work of Australian poet John Bennett. 

John Bennett is a widely published poet who has won major Australian prizes such as the Newcastle Prize and the David Tribe Award. He has been Sydney Harbour Artist of the Year and Poet in Residence at Sydney’s Macleay Museum and has received Varuna and Bundanon fellowships. He lives at Valla Beach and is an avid birder.

Participating artists: Rhonda Ayliffe, Sara Bowen, Angela Callanan, Fiona Dempster, Caren Florance, Robyn Foster, Avril Makula, Anna Mavromatis , Cindy Tonkin, Amanda Watson-Will

A Call to Action!

Visitors to the gallery were invited to write a postcard message to the Ministers for the Environment to raise awareness about the threats to shorebirds and their habitats. Some of our favourites have been included here.