Flood Lines

Artist Kylie Stevens and Historian Margaret Cook have created a multi-modal exhibition that combines community stories, historical documents, photography, and painting. They are motivated by the desire to share knowledge in different ways to increase the community’s understanding of floods. Flood Lines brings the river’s past and future into focus to make Ipswich’s flood hazard visible and visceral.

Flood Lines explores the watery paths of the Urarrar/Bremer River, its floodplains, ghost (or hidden) creeks, and its stories of past floods as we face a changing climate. The exhibition invites viewers to re-imagine Ipswich’s flood history and the watery secrets that lie beneath the city’s streets. Through research and subsequent conversation and consultation with Ugarapul Elder Uncle Kevin Anderson, Stevens has gleaned new insights into the Bremer River, known as Urarrar in the Ugarapul language. This dialogue has informed her practice and new body of work.

Stevens uses materials to honour and reference the places she represents. Her works, which depict Ipswich in flood, overlay information from historical maps and contain water collected during the 2022 flood. This essence is then added to the substances of paint and glaze. Copper leaf, used to represent the river and the floodplain, is symbolic of the dynamic nature and energy of the river as it moves through the land. The surfaces of the paintings are dry brushed with local, hand ground ochres and limestone.

Cook has spent over eight years researching and writing about floods, having published the acclaimed book, A River with a City Problem. For this collaboration, Cook has contributed research and writing, including the artwork labels and titles which provide insight into both Stevens’ artworks and the environment they respond to.