RECOVERY EXHIBITION

Chia Moan, Jane Ulman

Chia Moan

“Living in the Blue Mountains of NSW, I spend a lot of time in the bush looking and listening, drawing, painting, and trying to understand the power and complexity of this ancient and spectacular country.

Through the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute’s citizen science program I have become involved in eco-monitoring. I feel so lucky to live here and to walk alongside the many people who are involved in caring for and monitoring the land and it’s flora and fauna. BMWHI, Blue Mountains City Council, many science bodies, academics, conservationists, dedicated individuals, seek to do this important auditing, to measure the life and the loss and the changes. This is precise, practical and tender work in which I am privileged to play a small part.”

Chia Moan is a visual artist with a diverse practice including drawing, painting, printing, photography and writing. She has exhibited widely, including exhibitions at the Blue Mountains Heritage Centre, the Women on Screens Exhibition, Hackney Museum, London E8, The Performance Space and the Blue Mountains Portrait Exhibition. She holds a Bachelor of Arts, Political Science and Fine Arts, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC and studied drawing with B.C. Binning and screenprinting with Tony Onley, at the University of British Columbia. She worked as communications manager with the CSIRO, Division of Applied Physics and a lecturer at UTS. She has held the position of Senior Journalist, Newspaper Guild of America and is a Certified Iyengar Yoga teacher.

Jane Ulman

Jane Ulman is a freelance audio program maker and sound artist, with many years of experience recording wildlife, environments & voices across Australia and elsewhere. Along the way, she created a documentary archive and produced audio cds, collaborating with visual artists and performers on installations, film soundtracks, theatre pieces.

Formerly with the ABC,  she produced audio arts programs – poetry, drama, documentary, music, soundscapes, acoustic art, hybrid works. More often than not, productions were created with performers, artists and sound designers, nearly always with world class sound engineers, her ABC colleagues.

Among her installations/collaborations are:  works on Cockatoo Island, The Rocks, Sydney The Museum of Beijing & The Museum of Melbourne (Trepang with Marcia Langton, Johnny Bulun Bulun & Zhou Xioping) Object Gallery, The Sherman Foundation, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney & Habitat a permanent installation at Darling Harbour (all with artist Janet Laurence), Sculpture by the sea ,Les St Hill and the Tin Canoe with John Blay & Amanda Stuart. 

Teaching was an enlightening, reciprocal experience and involved courses in Writing for Sound, Creative writing, Culture & Sound at The University of Technology Sydney, The University of Wollongong and Varuna Writers’ Centre.  Audio work has been rewarded with success on a number of occasions including these international prizes:  5 Prix Italia awards in the categories of fiction, documentary and music; 4 Prix Marulic awards for documentary; 2 New York Radio awards, one fiction, one documentary.  

Jane’s documentary projects have led to meetings and friendships with country people, scientists, artists, Aboriginal teachers and elders and bush loving adventurers who’ve been informed guides and careful companions. Recording in the unbuilt environment is a plunge into deep listening and connection with the land and its life. For Jane it’s a privilege to have the chance to do this both for work and pure pleasure. 

Joining local ecological monitors has been a revelation. Fellow citizen scientists are generous in sharing diverse specialist knowledge and experience. This is exciting, inspiring and has given Jane a hunger to learn more, to find the best ways to understand and care for what we love and respect.