About Floating Land 2009: Rising Seas & Changing Climate

Floating Land: Rising Seas & Changing Climate is an initiative of  Noosa Regional Gallery (www.noosaregionalgallery.org) and is co-programmed alongside the Noosa Longweekend (www.noosalongweekend.com).

Floating Land began as an outdoor sculpture event and has since grown to include writers, performance artists, musicians, photographers, academics and scientists. Conceived in 2001, planning has commenced for the 5^th Floating Land to be held in June 2009. Artists will explore the theme of climate change and the impact of rising sea levels on coastal and island communities of the Pacific Ocean, all set within the beautiful Noosa environment.

Visitors to Floating Land are encouraged to stop and watch the sculptors over the 10-day event, participate in the workshops, attend the forums, follow the daily photography exhibits, and to watch the spectacle that has become known as ‘Firings by the Lake’ at sunset on stunning Lake Cootharaba.

Floating Land has gained national and international recognition for nurturing art and environment themes. Artists from the Pacific Islands and New Zealand will join Australian and local artists to create and deliver messages that explore ‘Green Art’. As artwork sites are located in the bush and water and on the foreshores, artists are challenged to create work that uses transient materials that leave no mark on their environment.

Events and artworks of Floating Land, with an emphasis on their fit into the environment, are ‘discovered’ in the stunning outdoor location of Lake Cootharaba in the UNESCO biosphere-listed Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. Fifteen minutes north of Noosa lies Boreen Point, the principle venue for the Floating Land artists and writers workshops, installations and performances, forums, storytelling, markets and food events.

Floating Land coincides with the Noosa Longweekend, a festival of national reputation that includes theatre, literary events, performance and forums. Floating Land provides the creative and visual art aspect of the festival which last year attracted over 8000 visitors from around Australia.

The Noosa Regional Gallery will hold two Pacific Island exhibitions in conjunction with Floating Land. The first is Waters of Tuvalu: A Nation at Risk which presents works from the Museum of Victoria and artefacts from the community of Tuvalu. The second exhibition, Legacy Tuvalu: The Footprint on Funafuti, by photo-journalist Jocelyn Carlin, shows the impact first-hand that climate change is having on the Pacific Islands.