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- Creating images & other creative works relating to ocean baths
Culture - Creating images & other creative works relating to ocean baths
Creativity and cultural significance is evident in the
artworks that represent ocean baths. Though a few novels featuring the NSW
coast do contain descriptions of ocean baths and action set at ocean baths,
the ocean baths have had most impact in the visual arts.
Key aspects to consider are:
Who makes images of ocean
baths and why?
Images of ocean baths and their patrons appeal to many of Australia's
'saltwater people', who regard swimming as a
basic social and practical skill and the coast as the preferred place for
their homes and holidays, to people who are part of the well-established
beach and swimming cultures that incorporate ocean baths, and to people who
find the baths and their patrons exotic. Ocean baths are an undeniably
exotic aspect of suburban coastal life, providing opportunities to connect
with the natural life of the rock platform and the undeniable power of the
ocean. (See the thematic history relating to
Appreciating the evolving rocky shore.)
To a contemporary mind, ocean baths
are places of pleasing and fruitful ambiguity and contrast, located in
settings far more dramatic than those of other public pools. While other
public pools became increasingly standardised and safe, ocean baths retain
an evident individuality and a greater tolerance of unsupervised risk.
Winter swimmers and other patrons of the ocean baths are perceived as more 'heroic' than swimmers
at other public pools. Since the 1990s, ocean baths are increasingly
favoured shooting spots for professional and amateur photographers and
attractive subjects and
suitable subjects for all forms of visual arts.
Most artists focus their attention on the ocean baths in
Newcastle or Sydney and on the pool and its environment, or on the pool's
patrons, rather than on the buildings at the baths. Memorable images of ocean baths and
their patrons have been created by photographers such as Steve Back, Neale
Duckworth, Max Dupain, Rex
Dupain, Peter Elliston, Paul Foley, Matt Hoyle, Ian Lever, Steve Rutherford,
Patrick van Daele or painted by Dion Archibold, Rod Bathgate, Martine Emdur, Peter Kingston, John Earle,
Jeffrey Smart, Ian Swift and James Willebrant.
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Locating
images of ocean
baths
Until the 1990s, images of ocean baths were more
likely to appear on postcards, in family photo collections or in tourist
literature, than at art exhibitions. Images of the ocean baths created in paint, mixed media
or as photographic images are found on public exhibition in art
galleries, while ocean baths also appear in television and press
advertisements, press and TV news, tourist literature, stock photo libraries, the digitised image collections of the Australian War
Memorial, other government archives, state and local libraries, club
archives , the websites of amateur swimming clubs,
winter swimming club or surf clubs and on online photographic competitions
and at online image-sharing facilities such as Flickr (www.flickr.com).
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Interpreting the images of
ocean baths
It is a measure of the
distinctiveness of the NSW ocean baths that photographers now posting images of
these baths on photo-sharing websites often find they must
explain the existence of the ocean baths and their use to people overseas,
who are unfamiliar with such facilities and therefore have difficulty
interpreting images of ocean baths. Like Tourism Australia's Where the
bloody hell are you? advertising campaign, such discussions help construct
ocean baths as markers of a national, rather simply than a local or regional
identity.
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Further Information
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