Wes Hill: What is it like to be a contemporary artist based in Hobart? Do you think that Tasmanian artists are generally well-represented in exhibitions and discourse produced on the Australian mainland?
Andrew Harper: No, not really. But why should we be? I actually feel a bit uncomfortable speaking for Tasmania because the reasons I make a work and how I go about it are so personal.
Having said that, there is a sense of place in some of my work; Celluloid Curse Against the Current Government (2005) was very much about being in Hobart and being near Mount Wellington for the project’s final performance. But generally I don’t make work about place, though there is a bit of it about in Tasmania. It is interesting that you can feel so dwarfed by nature here. It’s so big. I was told once of a visiting artist from mainland Australia who found Mount Wellington to be an oppressive presence in Hobart. I thought that was hilarious. I understood this as a reaction to the immensity of nature—being humbled by it and not liking that feeling. I actually like the sensation of being dwarfed by nature here. I don’t see it as a bad thing.
Wes Hill: You once walked from Launceston to Hobart as an artwork, didn’t you?
Andrew Harper: Yeah, that was a weird one. I’d had the idea of going for a really long walk for some time. I think about a lot when I walk. I’m also into psychogeography and cognitive mapping. Walking became difficult for me after I broke my ankle badly in 2002. This was terrible because I don’t drive and I like... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
A Thousand Pardons, 2007. Video still. Contemporary Art Spaces Tasmania (CAST), Hobart.
Acrid, 2009. Performance still with PISS(light), 2007, film projected onto the artist. Performed at 6A Gallery, Hobart.
