Baosteel

by Tim Gruchy

17:30

IMMINENCE    Kronenberg  Mais Wright Gallery 
2019

The Brothers Gruchy Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery : Queensland
14th Feb to 26th Apr 2020

Artist Statement            The Baoshan steelworks in Shanghai, at 28 hectares, were one of the largest steelworks in the world. Now decommissioned, the once well tended gardens throughout the massive unimaginably huge industrial complex are slowly retaking the landscape whilst the site awaits redevelopment. Having had privileged access to the site and observed this first hand over recent years, I have composed this work playing with the theme of nature reabsorbing the post industrial landscape humanity discards. There is an air of surreality about the site and in the work I have digitally heightened this. No people appear in the work so in some ways it is post-anthropocene. The soundscape emerged from treated field recordings I captured in Shanghai. It is also an allegory. For all the strength and rigidity of steel over time, it must always bow to the relentless reclamation by nature.