Desert Journeys – Desert Calling

An exhibition of paintings and monoprints by Rena Czaplinska-Archer.

The Australian desert confronts us all with its silent presence. Yet it also draws us in.  As we let go of stories of who we are, what we know and what to expect we gradually enter into a silent conversation with the vast horizons and intimate spaces.  Desert becomes our teacher.

After a lifetime of designing and building houses in Sydney and teaching architecture at Sydney University and running Time for Drawing workshops at Riversdale and internationally, Rena ventured into Australian desert where in 2016 Idris Murphy introduced her to Fowlers Gap.

Forever grateful she has been returning there every year to keep exploring and to run Desert Calling Art Camps, walk the quartz ridges, paint and dream in the dry riverbeds, where changing colours, moving shadows and the sounds of birdsong, wind and crunchy stones grow into vibrating with life symphony, healing the senses and nourishing the heart. This exhibition is inspired by desert songs. 

The exhibition is being held at Art Space on The Concourse, 409 Victoria Ave, CHATSWOOD NSW, Chatswood, 2067

More information can be found on the council website: HERE

Meeting Juhani Pallasmaa in Melbourne

Meeting Juhani Pallasmaa at the National Architecture Conference in Melbourne, 14-16 April 2011.

Rena Czaplinska-Archer and Juhani Pallasmaa

Juhani Pallasmaa’s autograph for Rena

Healthy Houses Conference in Bratislava - May 2011

“We need to think with sensations in our muscles.”

— Albert Einstein.

Rena Czaplinska-Archer was invited as a Key Note Speaker at the Conference Healthy Houses Bratislava May 2011.

The way we practice architecture today is increasingly based on a virtual reality of computer screen images, which leads us away from a bodily experience. In his book Eyes of the Skin, Juhani Pallasmaa warns that “human behaviour and construction have become dangerously detached from their ecological context” and wants us to reawaken our sensory awareness and reignite our architectural design intuition.

Green and sustainable design talks about the protection of natural resources, about designing in harmony with nature. We are nature too. Before we start designing we study and observe the natural and built environment. We must not forget to engage our senses and learn to listen with our bodies as well. 

Meeting members of Body Conscious Design:

Left to right: Prof. Jader Tolja (Italy), Dr. Rena Czaplinska-Archer (Australia), Prof. Veronika Kotradyova (FA STU Slovakia), Nattawa Kamklai, (Thailand) – all members of Body Conscious Design.

Meeting Prof. Galen Cranz (Berkeley USA), the founder of Body Conscious Design during her visit to Sydney in August 2011:

Prof. Galen Cranz (Berkeley USA), the founder of Body Conscious Design.

Somatics

“We need to think with sensations in our muscles”

— Albert Einstein

Lines in the Sand: (re)making contact | Meredith Elton (AUS) - TRAILER 5 mins trailer from a group performance at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Art Festival in April 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdTvBnnKewk

HEFT : Our combined art response to living with Covid - Collaboration with a video artist Jenny Pollak and choreographer Victoria Hunt - supported by nillumbik.vic.gov.au/covid-art grant and exhibited at Barn Gallery, Montsalvat, 7 Hillcrest avenue, Eltham in February 2021

 https://vimeo.com/471673091

Paintings

“As I draw what I see changes and becomes visible in drawings. Drawing becomes an adventure, an exploration into inner and outer landscapes”

— Rena Czaplinska-Archer, 2014

Wollombi studio

Sea Ranch sketches