Sugar vs the Reef? (with Kim Williams and many community collaborators) (2015-19)



Visit the Sugar vs the Reef? project blog beginning in September 2016.


About the project:

Sugar vs the Reef? was a project by Lucas Ihlein and Kim Williams, farmers Simon Mattsson and John Sweet, and a host of community members in Mackay, Queensland.

The project extends the research undertaken in The Yeomans Project into a mega-scale environmental management problem.

Sugar vs the Reef? - the back-story...

In 2014, following the exhibition of The Yeomans Project at Art Gallery of NSW, artists Lucas Ihlein and Ian Milliss were invited by octogenarian farmer and environmental activist John Sweet to collaborate on a project to explore the effects of sugar cane farming practices in Queensland. Fertilizer, sediment, and pesticide run-off are among the major causes of degradation to the Great Barrier Reef.

Between 2015 and 2010, artists Lucas Ihlein and Kim Williams collaborated with John Sweet and canefarmer Simon Mattsson to explore tactics for grass-roots cultural change leadership from within the cane farming community.

In July 2017, we held a major event, Sunset Symphony in the Sunflowers, at Simon Mattsson's sugarcane farm in Marian. Mattsson planted a dual crop of sugar cane and sunflowers, out of which we carved a large amphitheatre space for a celebration of music, dance, food and regenerative agriculture.

From early 2018 to late 2019 the next phase of the project began, with the Watershed Land Art Project. The WLAP involves a public planting at the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens, demonstrating regenerative agriculture methods, and bringing together artists, farmers, traditional custodians from the Yuwibara Aboriginal Corporation, members of the Australian South Sea Islander community, environmental management professionals and members of the wider community.

An exhibition was presented at Artspace Mackay in late 2018.

Sugar vs the Reef? was the central project for Lucas Ihlein's ARC DECRA research (2016-18), and one of several collaborations exploring art, agriculture and ecology as part of his Australia Council Fellowship (Emerging and Experimental Arts)


More info on Sugar vs the Reef?:

Lucas Ihlein: 1:1 scale art and the Yeomans Project in North Queensland, interview with Latitudes, in Artlink, 2016.

Lucas Ihlein, Sugar vs the Reef? – Socially Engaged Art in the Field, in NiTRO - Non Traditional Research Outcomes, November 2016.

Lara Webster, North Queensland cane farmer and artist work together to promote farming, ABC Rural, 28 October 2016.

Sarah Hamylton and Lucas Ihlein, Cleaning up runoff onto the Great Barrier Reef: how art and science are inspiring farmers to help, in The Conversation, November 3, 2016.

Sugar vs the Reef?, Exhibition Catalogue from Artspace Mackay, Nov 2018 to Jan 2019. Download PDF here.

Dr Tania Leimbach & Dr Judith Friedlander, "Growing Biodiverse Futures: Rewilding, Regenerating, Reimagining", in Counter Magazine, Issue 2, 2020.

Australia Council for the Arts, "Artists and farmers coming together to envision a new future", Dec 2019

UOW Partners for Research Impact magazine, 2017.

UOW Research and Innovation Magazine, 2017.

Kim Williams and Lucas Ihlein, “Two places: working and walking with waterways”, in MECO Network, 100 Atmospheres: Studies in Scale and Wonder, Open Humanities Press, London.

Australia Council for the Arts, 2019, "Artists and Farmers Coming Together to Envision a new future", in Valuing the Arts: Australia Council 2018-19 Annual Report. Full report PDF here.