When the Fog Clears

Curated by Loren Kronemyer

Produced by Constance in partnership Ten Days on The Island

Franklin Watershed, lutruwita/Tasmania

21-30 March 2024

*more images coming soon

When the Fog Clears

Rosie Hastie

Amber Koroluk-Stephenson

Nadege Philippe-Janon

Joshua Santospirito

Mat Ward

Ursula Woods

Every day, the mists of the Huon Valley perform a seductive dance, gently obscuring and revealing contours of the fertile land and waters. Situated in The Watershed Franklin, When The Fog Clears features six artists from lutruwita / Tasmania exploring the region’s iconic mists through a variety of mediums including installation, sculpture, illustration, sound, and video.

Developed exclusively for Franklin, this exhibit extends from the waterfront itself into the chambers, kilns, and rafters of the shed, inviting visitors to consider fog as an atmosphere that can cloak us in unexpected ways.

the banks of the river do not grieve separation

Written by Selena De Carvalho, February 2025

Vapour hovers, beautifully spooky, an illusion above sleek water bodies. Flying rivers snake through gullies. Darkness lays down cool air, the warmth of the water rises to kiss the sky, unbridled by gravity's magnitude, a steamy embrace. Catching the high wind, ragged slopes crest gentle valleys and sleeping beauty winks at ozone above the fog cloaked dance.

This sometimes ghost disappears, evaporating in the heat of daylight. A spirit unbreathed. A world undressed. The Mighty Huon’s nocturnal exhale, alive in a quiet sort of way. Somehow under darkness the rules are different and I could ride on this carpet of fog to the never-never.

I think of all the 5:30am mornings when I’ve swung over the saddle, moon riding low on the hilltop, winding descent into the mist. A disappearing act. Slipping through the atmospheric veil between worlds, I enter the valley. The now rare event of snow on mountains in winter, splashing warm water on the windscreen, ice crackling, disco lights strobe the white lines, alerting drivers of the potential frozen tarmac. Roadkill still life. Tasmanian gothic.

Silently these low clouds have watched me heave sorrows like stones into the water. Purging grief, gulping the weight of it, drowning on dry land, knee deep in blady grass and black swans. Who even cares if my hands are blistered from clinging to the sun. Yellow tufted blooms of wattle ragged in the post rainy hues, the long dawn of a watercolour sunrise bleeding off the page.

Without judgement, the river swallowed them whole, not even a ripple. Above this mist swirling surface, a bone thin stick breaks the tension reaching skyward, beckoning like a mirage.

This valley has been beyond kind. Cradling my transition between youth and adulthood, witnessing my becoming a woman, a mother – when the babe spilled from my body in the tiny shack on the hill, when the rent was just $40 a week and the water was warmed by the crackling fire combustion stove, and the rainforest felt like it could eat us all in the dark shadows of winter. Through the seasons. Birds returning, days that run faster than ripped stockings towards the big hot summer energy. When the backwaters were backwaters - not pinned destinations and the neighbours were gun tote’n, dart smoking characters, ironically it was a refreshing sort of an out breath, because the permission this extended to all be ourselves was a raw, gritty kind of a realness. She’s seen me wallow and seen me shine... maybe she will see me crone, like the apple trees when they struggle to produce even one leaf, let alone a flower.

The river flows on, a community centre, the centre of community, she draws us in, parting the land with a steady rapid flow, the banks do not grieve separation, instead they give rise to a third bank, this misty dancer who carries messages across the divide.

This project is supported by Arts Tasmania