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Janet Meaney, Great Australian Wava, 2014, Amsterdam, Dortrecht Friedrichshafen
(absent minded fly swatting gesture, performed by a large group of people in a public space)
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Janet Meaney is an international performance artist based in Canberra. After growing up in Adelaide, Janet moved overseas in her early twenties to travel widely throughout Europe and eventually settling in the US where she gained a BFA majoring in sculpture at CCS Detroit Michigan and went on to establish a successful practice exhibiting in the USA and Canada. Returning to Australia in 1984 Janet's practice grew through sculpture into installation and video as she exhibited throughout Australia. Alongside her active practice Janet continued to study, gaining a Grad Dip in Art History and Curatorship and later completing her PhD in performance art at ANU in 2011. Over her career Janet has received numerous scholarships grants and awards, most recently these include a 2012 Asialink residency in India and a 2013 artsACT travel/residency grant to Finland and Estonia. Her performances have also been executed by proxy in Amsterdam and Dortrecht the Netherlands and Friedrichshafen Germany in 2014. Earlier this year, Janet performed in a contemporary arts festival in Sri Lanka, and she will be visiting Bangladesh in February 2016 to participate in the Dhaka Art Summit. Having exhibited in Australia, Canada, India and the USA, Janet's work is in private collections in all four countries and articles have been written in local newspapers and published articles.
Find out more about Janet's practice www.janetmeaney.wix.com/performance
Find out more about Janet's practice www.janetmeaney.wix.com/performance
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Janet Meaney, Puppeteer, 2013, Tallin Estonia
(the precariousness of an artist pulling her own strings)
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During my residency at Gunyah, I plan to examine the local shoreline looking for indications of the rise in sea level such as erosion of the sand and receding shoreline and or changes in nearby estuaries and sand bars. I will also look for ways in which these issues have been addressed and their effectiveness. My findings will be documented through photographs, video and drawings, which, after examination in the studio, will be employed to formulate a performance that I will execute on the beach before a live audience. A video of the performance will be screened in subsequent venues in Canberra. An example of this type of work is a piece titled 'Running Against Time' in which I run between two enormous one metre long glass egg times placed at either end of the narrow section of a sand bar that divides the sea from a low lying estuary. My running gives a sense of urgency to the piece and tipping the timers up in turn points to the futility of trying to manipulate time. An umpire’s seat situated at one end the sandbar invites the viewer to observe the inevitability of the sea breaking into the estuary, but left empty it stymies any true view of the immanent danger it poses to the coastline by flooding and the impact on the community.
https://janetmeaney.see.me
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Janet Meaney, Sitting on Ones Hands, proposed performance for Brazil 2015
(ten people sitting on their hands as the sea
rises towards high tide)
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Janet Meaney, Halo, Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 2015
(a performance in collaboration with Pakistani artist Zoya Siddiqui)
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Janet Meaney, Rocks in Her Head, 2015
(you know the old saying)
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