Leisuretime I

Aaron Claringbold & Rebecca McCauley (VIC)

  • Wheelchair access
  • Blaktix

Leisuretime I is a photographic intervention inside an operating tourist ferry on the Birrarung/YarraRiver. Jump on board to reflect on the ways that photography has shaped contemporary understandings and uses of ‘natural’ spaces within the floodplains now known as Melbourne.

Float along the river seated within a camera obscura, disembodied from the outside world, and experience your surroundings reversed and upside-down, projected onto the vessel walls. Cruise with our guide as we take in some of the sights this city has to offer; riverside bars, outdoor BBQs, million-dollar properties, yoga in the park, and the oldest and largest surviving single dock in the world; asking,why did we get here, and how?

Content Warnings

This production takes place on a boat that will travel down a river. Audience members will be in a dark space on a boat for the entirety of the show and will not be able to leave the boat for the duration of the performance. There will be low visibility during the performance, and audience members who experience claustrophobia are encouraged to contact Next Wave with any questions.

Leisuretime I is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program and RMIT through its Photo Futures Lab.

Sponsored by:

  • Australia Council
  • City of Melbourne
  • RMIT
  • Yarra River Cruises

Lead artists — Aaron Claringbold & Rebecca McCauley
Mentors — Willoh S. Weiland, Steven Rhall & Kate Golding
Underwater Recordings — courtesy of the Centre for Marine Science and Technology, Curtin University 

Aaron Claringbold and Rebecca McCauley are emerging artists currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. Creating works that are predominantly photo-based the pair bring together shared interests to explore land, land use, ecology and human presence within modern day ‘Australia’. In particular, they look to explore the ways in which human impact and ideologies have shaped conceptions of nature through colonisation, feeding nationalistic identities around place.Reflecting on their shared positionality as settler-descendant white Australians, Rebecca and Aaron are inspired by writers, thinkers, and artists making work that confronts the entanglement of ecocide and genocide, and the social processes that engender them. They have a particular interest in practices that centre place-based bonding and responsibility, and that complicate the myriad of essentialisms underpinning the Australian Colonial Project.