SHASTA STEVIC
PROJECTS
Captive
Contemporary Art Tasmmania
May 2022
Are we captivated by screens or captives of them?
Screens emit energy. However, in addition to that, they also generate energy, in us, when we use them...when we click, scroll, view, like, share, produce. And we then emit that energy into the world.
Is this energy good or bad? Does it have a positive impact on the other lifeforms around us or a negative one?
There are many ways in which we are aware of the negative impact of humans on other species, on the natural environment, on the planet. But what about where that impact is more subtle, or even invisible to us?
Antitheses
Skammdegi Festival, Northen Iceland
December 2017 - February 2018
A collaborative project by Shasta Stevic and Caigan Meade that simultaneously explored life in two geographical and seasonal opposites.
Shasta was based in Ólafsfjörður, in the north of Iceland, while Caigan was based on Phillip Island, in the south of Australia. Shasta was in the cold and the dark at the height of winter. Caigan was in the heat and the light at the height of summer.
The project took shape over a 10-week period, with a resulting presentation during Skammdegi Festival, which ran from 26 January - 4 February 2018 in Northern Iceland.
Archaeological Dig
Seyðisfjörður, Iceland
2016
Three-day performance and exhibition exploring themes of (un)civilisation, progress, human-centrality, environmental degradation and destruction, waste, greed, and fear.
The goal was to utilise performance and installation as a form of storytelling to weave a narrative through the small town in which the performance took place - this started with a deliberately-planted rumour within the town of the discovery of artefacts, then a 3-day archaelogical dig, followed by an installation of a museam-style cabinet of the 'found' objects, leading to robust conversations about the past, the present, the future, and our place within them.
The Forest
Hallormsstaðaskógur, Iceland
2016
The project involved spending 48 hours alone in Hallormsstaðaskógur National Forest interviewing trees for a reality television show.
The Dark Mountain Manifesto speaks about the myth of Human Centrality - the myth that humans are the centre of everything, the most important beings on the planet, in the universe. Shows like Real Housewives and The Kardashians are a stark illustration of this.
If humans can star in reality television, why can't species, like trees? Would they want to? What would they say and do?
