Living Data

Contributors/
Imaginative Feat

Disclaimers, Copyrights and Citations
Index of contributions

An "imaginative feat" is what Simon Pockleycalled (in 2015) the giftthat I prepared for Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Now (in 2018) I take that to mean the gift was a contribution to a collective re-membering of ourselves as part of nature. I didn't consciously think about it that way at the time. I simply woke one morning with the idea of a message I could give the PM, that is held (collectively) in some in objects that seemed right for the occasion. The gift was a coin, a drawing, and a note in an envelope that I handed to Bruce Parncuttwith his promise of delivery at the opening of the 2015 Tom Roberts exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.
The note begins,

Dear Malcolm, I give you these items of family memorabilia as a gesture of hope for the arts and the sciences, and for my trust in your leadership towards a more creative, intelligent and productive Australia. The coin is the lesser part of a guinea that Tom received when he first sold an art work. It's engraved with a 'T' and wrapped in paper with his words, "1st Artist money TR." This was given to my father Noel, Tom's oldest grandson, when he studied art at the Swinburne Technical College, Victoria. Noel gave it to me when I studied at the National Gallery School of Art (now VCA). The acrylic piece is engraved with my first sighting of the birth of Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill)...