Forest Keegel
+61 402 035 521
forestATkeegel.id.au
Dja Dja Wurrung Country Owl Hollow 8 Mill St Maldon 3463 Victoria Australia
Education
2000 Graduate Diploma of Education Southern Cross University
1997 Honours, Sculpture Performance and Installation Sydney College of the Arts! Bachelor of Arts Visual Arts
1992 Sculpture. Southern Cross University Lismore
Current Certificates
Working with Children Check
Level 2 First Aid certificate
Public Liability Insurance
Employment
2017-Current Multicultural Arts Victoria Emerge Cultural Hub Bendigo Creative Producer
2006 -2017 Artful Dodgers Studios, Jesuit Social Services Community Cultural Development Artist
2017 Sockcycle, community weaving project City of Greater Bendigo
2013 -15 Art Central Go Goldfields Central Goldfields Shire Visual Artist
2016 Artist in Residence Castlemaine Art Gallery and Museum
2016 Dispersed Belongings Arts based research project Bendigo
2016 Drawing Picnics in the Park, Pennyweight Park, City of Ballarat
Commissions and Prizes
2014 Lorne Sculpture Biennale Sculpturescape Award for Hyperventilate
2013 Universal Power and Light Sculpture award Lot 19 Spring Sculpture
2009 Artecycle Commission Reclamation Moonee Valley Council Incinerator Arts Complex! Castlemaine Fringe
2008 Festival Tonks Sculpture prize Dew Funnel Winner of the Most Sustainable Sculpture
Selected Exhibitions and Installations
2019 Covers Maldon Art Walk
2018 Snake in the Landscape collaboration with Aunty Marilyne Nicholls Treechange Vaughan Springs
2018 Gilt Biennale of Australian Art Mining Exchange Ballarat
2018 Makarrata Garden Tarrangower Maldon Neighbourhood Centre a Regional Centre for Culture project
2017 Mound: Leaf and Twig Conservatorium Bendigo Conservatory
2017 Golden Bee Dew Spring Art Swarm St Margaret’s Church of Art in Norwich, UK
2017 Beached Verandah Wishart Gallery Port Fairy
2016 Horizontal Connectivity Toolangi Sculpture Trail
2016 Golden Bee, Alpha House Gallery Newtown
2016 Spitball Constellation, Arts Open Old Castlemaine Gaol
2015 From Nature Gasworks Arts Park
2015 Future Hindsight Lot 19 Castlemaine State Festival
2015 Maldon Art Walk Hyperventilate at Maldon Historic Station
2014 Bonanza Yarra Sculpture Gallery
2014 Riparian Intercept Mount Alexander Shires temporary art in public places program
2014 Surveyed Unicorn Lane Gallery Ballarat
2013 Artfields Castlemaine Market Building
2013 What Lies Beneath Backyard Ballarat Art Gallery
2012 Span Stockroom Kyneton
2012 Maquette Show MARS Gallery
2012 Freshwater Catchment Moonee Moonee Merri Merri Moreland Station MoreArt
2012 Chicken and egg? Yarra Sculpture Gallery
2011 Lorne Sculpture- finalist in Sculpturescape and Sculpturetrail
2011 The HEATER show Yarra Sculpture Gallery
2011 Hollow Nests Castlemaine State Festival
2010 Hollow Nests MoreArt RMIT carpark Brunswick
2007 The big 3 Oil Water Salt Williamstown Substation
2007 Ecotone Old England Hotel Outdoor Sculpture Award
2006 Entwined The National String Project Melbourne Fringe Festival Fitzroy Town Hall
2005 World Wildlife Fund NT Threatened Species Exhibition Darwin and Alice Springs
2004 Spread of the Empire Melbourne Environmental Arts Festival City Square
2004 Spawning Vessels Sustainable Living Festival Federation Square
2003 Meandering Time Mildura Palimpsest
2003 Chrysalis Stony Creek Environmental Art Event City of Maribyrnong
2003 Transpiration Bed Sustainable Living Festival Federation Square
2000 Introspective Lismore Regional Art Gallery
Community Developed Public Art
2006-07 Tactile Impressions Permanent sculpture for Harmony Park All Abilities Playground made
with children from Coburg North Primary School and Coburg Special Development School
Residencies
2020 ongoing Arts Territory Exchange Residency with Charlie Hurcombe
2017 Bendigo Conservatory
2017 Oasis on the Edge of the Desert Rainbow, Victoria
2017 Beached Verandah Portland, Victoria
2016/17 Artist in Residence Castlemaine Art Museum
2016 Toolangi Sculpture Trail Artist in Residence
Presentations/Conference Papers
2019 Creative Thinkers and Climate Change Castlemaine State Festival
2018 Orchestra of Extinction - Art informed by science; influencing human behaviour change from viewpoint of threatened species. Creating Utopias Conference Lorne Sculpture Biennale
2018 Artlands
2010 & 2011 Creative Communities Conference GriffithCentre for Cultural Research
Bibliography
http://www.troublemag.com/spitball-constellation-forest-keegel/
Governance Board memberships-
2011-2013 Contemporary Sculpture Association Board
2010-2017 Maldon Urban Landcare Board (President 2011/12)
Sector development: , ,
2020/21 Greater Creative Bendigo Advisory Committee,
2019-2021 Bendigo Multicultural Hub feasibility study,
ArtsFront Steering Group
2018 Regional Centre for Culture Working Group.
2016/17 Institute for Creative Heath Arts Health Victorian Arts Health Leadership Group
2011-13 Castanet Roundtable Artist representative
Funding assesments- Australia Council Peer, Creative Victoria and Regional Arts Victoria assessment panelist;
Forest Keegel lives and works on Dja Dja Wurrung Country and listens deeply to the stories of the Traditional Owners who continue to share their rich cultural heritage with a generosity which astounds her. As a settler she can trace back roots to her Sri Lankan Father and other boat arrivals in the 1860’s. A practising artist since 1992 and graduate of Honours in Sculpture Performance and Installation from Sydney College of the Arts. Her work has a strong environmental research focus and sharing her findings by highlighting conditions endangered species need to thrive is paramount to her practice. With more than a decade creating artworks that evoke a sense of the landscape of Victoria prior to colonisation and the gold rush. Keegel often uses Indigenous plants and waste paper to create ephemeral sculpture in public space. Creating a visual interpretation of scientific, historic and environmental research and illuminating those themes through engaging in conversation is crucial to her practice. In 2014 she was awarded the Lorne Biennale Sculpturescape Prize.
She has twenty years experience as a visual artist in Community Cultural Development and is passionate about creating participatory artworks that engage the public with the themes of her research or to generate work that expresses their voice and identity. For 11 years Keegel was a Community Cultural Development Artist at the Artful Dodgers Studios, Jesuit Social Services working collaboratively with young people 15-28. She was a member of the Art Central team of artists in the Central Goldfields Shire creating art with the community for public exhibition. Keegel currently works for MAV (formerly Multicultural Arts Victoria) in Bendigo at the Cultural Exchange.