Bonnet Hill-based artist Loren Kronemyer has joined 52 ACTIONS, an art exhibition that has been touring nationwide and is now open at the Devonport Regional Gallery from Saturday, March 29 to Saturday, May 10.
52 ACTIONS started off as an invitation put forward to 52 different artists to create digital transmissions that Artspace published online over the COVID pandemic years.
This has now manifested as a touring show, with the cohort of participants invited to create physical iterations of their work.
The exhibition is a call to explore art as action, with artists drawing on themes of discrimination, climate justice, migration stories and the unceded sovereignty of First Nations peoples.
Loren describes herself as an “anti-disciplinary artist,” with her work spanning interactive and live performance and experimental multi-media, exploring ecological futures and survival skills.
Her contribution to the exhibition is a “menu” listing some possible names for the next geological epoch.
We currently live in the Holocene, a name to describe the last 11,700 years of geological history.
However, there has been a lengthy debate whether humankind’s impact on the planet has been so significant that it warrants the classification of a new geological epoch, often referred to as the Anthropocene or ‘human age.’
Loren Kronemyer’s work in the exhibition teases a few of the other names that were floated whilst this debate was raging.
Loren Kronemyer, Epoch Tapestry, 2019. Installation view, 52 ACTIONS, Penrith Regional Gallery. (PS Jessica Maurer)
Loren said she thought she knew what the next geological epoch should be called.
After she began researching for her work, however, her answer changed.
“I really like the feeling of having my perspective changed,” Loren said.
Loren originally hails from California but moved to Tasmania in 2018.
“Given my work is really researching creative adaption, it definitely contributed to wanting to move to Tasmania in the first place,” she said.
“I spend a significant amount of time working with and being a part of communities very invested in the land.
“I don’t really distinguish between creative practice, ecological practice and day-to-day life when you get to live here.”
