The Churchie Emerging non acquisitive Art Prize founded by the Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane in 1987 has since sought to identify and profile rising artistic talent. This year’s winner of the $15,000 prize is Sydney based artist Joel Sherwood Spring. Joel talks to Arts Wednesday about his winning work Diggermode (2022) which is being exhibited now at, no less, the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane.

Joel has a masters degree in Architecture and is studying for his PhD at the moment. His early interests were not so much in art practice, but in pulling things apart to see how they worked.

Diggermode (2022) is a 23 minute, two-channel atmospheric and chilling video exploring the ongoing conflict between country and colonisation, focusing primarily on extraction and storage. The extraction industries, in particular mining, are questioned and challenged for their relationship to the traditional sovereign owners.

Joel takes a very hi-tech approach to his art, using artificial intelligence (AI) to create landscapes in the style of Albert Namatjira – a device he uses to then rip apart with mining machinery. Namatjira never had control or ownership of his art until recently because at the time he was painting he was not recognised under the law as a human being. It wasn’t until after the 1967 referendum that this could be changed. His estate now has control of his artworks.

His relationship with AI is a complex one. Firstly it is an artist’s tool as much as a paintbrush is, but it is also an unfeeling coloniser of our culture. ‘Can you bring an AI into recognition of itself as being made up of lithium extracted from NoongarBoodja?’, Spring asked. ‘Why is it more socially acceptable to think that an AI has feelings and thoughts than a tree?’ But as a digital tool relying on software, AI is at the end of the day, gate-kept by the multinational owners of that software. Who has the ultimate control of the artwork?

Diggermode questions the whole idea of the extraction industries, who has a right to the soil and what lies under it, and what of the spiritual connection of the traditional owners, what are their rights? This ties in with the ownership of that land from which the rare materials such as lithium were extracted, and in many cases they were indigenous owners.

Climate and environment are another big concern of Joel’s and it’s evident in his work. In his view the whole structure of our society fails to make the connection between the extraction industries (which are allowed and encouraged to continue for purely economic reasons) and the destructive effect that it is having on our climate and environment.

Sydney will get the chance to see Diggermode at the UTS Gallery from August 1 until mid September along with other works from Joel.

Also Festival Director, Rachel Chant previews the upcoming Bondi Festival – 30 June-16 July.