Group promotes global awareness of migrations

The Flyway Print Exchange – Introduction

The Flyway Print Exchange is an exchange between artists living in various countries along the East-Asian, Australasian Flyway, the flight path travelled by Australia’s migratory shorebirds twice annually between their breeding and non-breeding grounds.

Aims
– To bring together artists from a wide variety of cultural and artistic backgrounds
– To publicize the age-old linking of our countries through the natural phenomenon of bird migration
– To raise awareness of migratory shorebirds.

The Flyway
Artists are invited to investigate the idea of the Flyway and to use it as the starting point for their work. The annual departure and arrival of migratory birds is a spectacle which has symbolic meaning in numerous cultures around the world. Many of these birds travel vast distances, crossing several countries and entire continents during their annual cycle of migration.

The countries that comprise the East-Asian Australasian Flyway are: the USA (Alaska); Russia (Siberia); Mongolia; China; North Korea; South Korea; Japan; the Philippines; Vietnam; Laos; Thailand; Cambodia; Myanmar; Bangladesh; India; Malaysia; Singapore; Brunei; Indonesia; Timor; Papua New Guinea; Australia and New Zealand.

The Prints
Artists will be invited to create a limited edition of a print produced in response to the idea of the flyway and the bird species that frequent it. Finished editions will be posted to the project co-ordinator in Melbourne, Australia. The dimensions of the print will also be specified, and paper and postage will be provided.

– Each artists will receive one of each print in the exchange.
– Two prints from each edition will be posted, with no protective cover, along the Flyway to Alaska and back to Australia to mirror the journey undertaken by the birds. The weathered print will then be exhibited, alongside its pristine counterpart. The weathered print will refer to the physical reality of the birds’ journey.
– The remaining prints (as many as the artist wants to print in addition to those produced for the above purposes) will be offered for sale.

A proportion of the money from sales will be donated to BirdLife Australia to the Shorebirds 2020 Project which is working to conserve migratory shorebirds. BirdLife Australia would also have limited reproduction rights of the Exchange images for both publicity and revenue purposes.

Exhibitions
The prints from the exchange, both weathered and pristine, will first be exhibited in Melbourne, Australia. The exhibition will be publicised throughout the membership of BirdLife Australia, as well as through Australian art media.

Our aim is then to seek galleries along the Flyway to subsequently exhibit in the countries of each participating artist. We would ask participating artists for their input as to appropriate venues for the exhibition.

Approximate Timing
September 2013: Participating Artists finalised
March 2014: Editions completed and posted to the co-ordinator
June 2014: ‘Flyway’ prints return from posting along the Flyway and back
September 2014: First exhibition of the Flyway Exchange in Melbourne, Australia

This document is a preliminary draft of the details of the exchange. Artists’ who express an interest in
participating will be sent the final conditions of entry, a registration form and more specific details of the Flyway and the species that traverse it.

Please send expressions of interest to:

Kate Gorringe-Smith
Flyway Print Exchange Co-ordinator
Mobile: 0432 322 408
Email: katehal@optusnet.com.au
Website: www.kategorringesmith.com.au