Making time Story by Kate LeGallez.
Above: Detail from ‘Ark’ exhibition at The Mill, Kaurna Land. Photo courtesy of Tom Borgas.
Time is one of those things that we humans cannot change. Still, we try. We want to slow it down, speed it up, manage it. In 2020, we wallowed in it, sometimes joyfully, sometimes despairingly. For Adelaide-based artist Amber Cronin, the enforced stillness of the past twelve months has brought renewed awareness to the value of time, both in the meditative nature of her own artistic practice and in her efforts to build and energise local communities. 64
The daughter of a textile artist and a playwright, Amber’s earliest memories of art are inseparable from community. Her childhood was spent at folk festivals, where craft, production, theatre and music came together through the hard work of many different people. ‘I grew up in a world where people did creative things and could pursue these things and that was a reality,’ says Amber. Following her own creative path, she intuitively conceptualised art as a collaborative experience, ‘I just feel naturally connected to communities of people and supporting them.’ ‘I think about my own practice as being an ecology of different things,’ continues Amber, whose work wraps around sculpture, drawing, installation and performance. Whether through her sociallyengaged practice or her gallery-directed practice, she seeks to bring people into connection – with the natural world, with other communities and with themselves.
