Notions of Care #3: Polly Stanton on how culture and nature reflect one another

“And I definitely think that’s what landscape is for me, it is a questioning about living and life and what we do in places and what we leave behind,” says Polly Stanton in our latest podcast, talking about how her art practice looks at the entwined relationship between culture and nature.

Stanton is part of the exhibition that gives this podcast it’s title, Notions of Care. The exhibition brings together five artists and groups to consider care in art making, through materials, how we relate to one another, and as an approach to the world.

Stanton is an artist and filmmaker who primarily creates moving image works that look at how human action and use of the landscape effect not only the landscape itself, but how we perceive and interpret the landscape. Her practice focuses on sound and visuals, with an immersive process which sees Stanton spending much time in the sites she captures, from the Goldfields of Victoria to the landscape of Queenstown.

We start by talking about care in the arts, and how Stanton grew up with parents in the entertainment industry, where she early on witnessed the struggle to sustain a creative practice. We also talk through her early work in cinema and screenwriting, and the eventual shift into contemporary art.

Stanton takes us through her process of working in the landscape, and how it’s not about romanticising the environment but about understanding the world in non-didactic ways. And for someone whose work deals directly with human effects on the environment, and with ever-growing climate change threat, Stanton tells us how she feels about the future.

You can listen back to previous episodes in this series with Kate Tucker and Katie West.

Notions Of Care
Ararat Gallery TAMA
Until 26 February 2023

Episode source