Clare Thackway Possum (2011)
Clare Thackway is bringing Green Valley Farm to Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Oh what a fright and delight it will be. Green Valley Farm is a regional holiday park located just outside the small country town of Tingha in northern New South Wales. Thackway’s paintings and documentary video inspired by her visit there expose the freakish specimen sited at this peculiar “bush oasis”. The farm is home to playgrounds, waterslides and deformed animals. If you have ever wanted to see a five-legged sheep, Green Valley’s got one. The most interesting attraction of all, however, is the Smith Museum that was the first registered private gallery in Australia. Here the country curator shows Thackway the unique memorabilia collected over the years. Dead specimens are bottled up and preserved in methylated spirits. Two-headed kittens, a lamb without any head at all, an albino echidna and legless lizards. The list goes on. .... (Isabelle Morgan)