Liz Jeneid: Toni O'Neill and I met many years ago through her interest in crafts and friendship with furniture maker Henry Black. Some years later, when we were both teaching at the University of Wollongong, we became friends. We were both involved in an academic women's group initiated to encourage networking and look at career opportunities within the university for women.
Toni and I talked about future projects from time to time and she was interested when I told her about an artists' retreat that Diana Wood Conroy and Kay Lawrence were organising with staff and students from the Faculty of Creative Arts (as well as other Australian and overseas institutions). This retreat was to take place at Lake Mungo in July 1997. As Toni's PhD was focussed on the Lake Mungo area, she was interested and enthusiastic about the project. She was planning to take a group of students out that way during the same period, and hoped that they would be able to spend a few days with us on the way home. Unfortunately, the group did not make it to Lake Mungo before we left.
As I was the Director of the Long Gallery in the Wollongong Faculty of Creative Arts at that time, I was planning to have an exhibition of the work done during the 10 day retreat. Thirty-three artists photographed, drew, painted and constructed objects while staying at the Lake Mungo Lodge. Although the works were not finished, they showed diverse ways of seeing, and a thoughtful approach to this arid and fragile environment. I approached Toni about using some of her maps and scientific material for the exhibition which she was happy to supply. The exhibition of drawings, constructions and photographs gained another dimension through the addition of her scientific material. This was to me a wonderful example of collaboration between friends and faculties.
It was then planned that Toni should be a co-curator of the next exhibition, to be held 3 years after the retreat. Lake Mungo Re-visited will take place in October, 2000. Sadly, Toni will not be there but we plan to incorporate elements of her work mapping the vegetation through remote sensing. Her spirit will be a vital part of this exhibition.
Liz Jeneid
Diana Wood Conroy: I have a vivid memory of Toni walking along one of the pleasant paths of the university; bordered by grevilleas. She was wearing a spotted headscarf which gave her a festive look, and was deep in conversation with the two colleagues on either side of her. This was a time when her research was expanding, and being noticed elsewhere. Later that day I attended her seminar on Pleistocene dating, and she told me how involved she was with her postgraduate students, despite her illness.
The borders between science and art can be blurred, particularly through the use of visual imagery. The metaphors of mapping and gridding, of investigating layers and nuances of material, of understanding the microscopic forms within the macroscopic environment, are all strategies used by natural scientists and artists, For myself as a tapestry weaver, Toni's research, which incorporated information from space with the tiny details of a miriad plants in the dry plains, had the same obsessive quality as that of an artist, a passionate desire to discover truths about the ground we live on.
Diana Wood Conroy
Ms Liz Jeneid and Dr Diana Wood Conray are both Senior Lcturers, Visual Arts, in the Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong. The exhibition Lake Mungo Re-visited will start its tour of Australian states, with an opening at the Goulburn Regional Gallery in October 20.
Toni O'Neill's interest in bringing together the practices of science and art will be honoured in the exhibition. Mary Rosengren, who contributed the cover material for this journal edition, is a colleague of Toni's now living in Scotland who will also be a participant. Associate Professor Lesley Head from the School of Geo-Sciences will contribute a catalogue essay.