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IAN WEIR

b. 1963

STATEMENT

Weir is an architect and artist. He is the son of one of the original War Service Soldier Settlers and grew up on the farm allocated to his father on Swamp Road, Gairdner River, between 1963 and 1976.

He gains great inspiration from the multitude of natural, social, and historical characteristics of this region, an area best described as the Fitzgerald Biosphere Reserve.  To grow up in an area where every house, sheep yard and shearing shed was absolutely identical, in what is quite possible one the largest modernist projects, at least in the southern hemisphere – and have this extreme homogeneity overlayed on one of the most botanically diverse regions on earth - offers Weir an extraordinarily rich ‘ground’ to cultivate creative endeavours.

Weir’s work draws equally from the variety of perceptions of landscapes. Landscapes such as the Barren Ranges in the Fitzgerald River National Park where differences in perception are best exemplified by the linguistic gulf between explorer Edward John Eyre who stated “Most properly had it been called Mount Barren, for a more wretched looking country never existed than that around it” and botanist Ken Newbey who equally stated “If you tried you could discover a new species everyday, when some scientists are delighted to find one in a lifetime”.

Weir is currently researching the possibilities of developing a new typology of architecture specific to the unique qualities of the central south coast of Western Australia.  He believes that in order to develop an architecture that responds deeply with this particular landscape we must first develop new ways of seeing and representing particular to this landscape. He hopes to develop a “new ecology of seeing”: seeking to discover outside of the boundaries of convention, new means of representation that (re)animate landscape’s pedagogical capacities – an imaging that is commensurate with the rich, heterogenous and polyphonous character of unmediated nature*, capable of generating more engaging, place-specific human/nature relationships.

EXHIBITIONS & PRESENTATIONS

    • 2001 Landscape Representation and Site-Specific Architecture in the Fitzgerald Biosphere Reserve, UNESCO, Paris (photographic, mapping works and slide presentation).
    • 2000 Earth as Light, Cullity Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA (photographic, mapping works and presentation of paper).
    • 1996/97 The Little Red Cameras, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, WA (photographic works).

PRIZES AND AWARDS

    • 1998 The Royal Australian Institute of Architects ‘Architect’s Travel Award’
    • CCD Australia Prize, (building services), School of Architecture and Fine Art, UWA
    • Hewitt’s Art Bookshop Prize, (dissertation), School of Architecture and Fine Art, UWA
    • 1995/96 RAIA/BHP Student Biennale, (Finalist)
    • 1996 Future Generations University: International Competition, (Finalist, team member)
    • 1983 Annual River Crossing Award (Curtin University)