Tea Mäkipää, Battle of Australia (2013-14)
Artist: Tea Mäkipää
Work: Battle of Australia (2013-14)
Location: Esperance, Western Australia
Tea Mäkipää’s Battle of Australia is a celebration of the beauty and charm of the ‘voiceless’ inhabitants of Western Australia’s vast expanses — our native fauna. Traditionally, Indigenous Australians domesticated many of these animals, but since European settlement countless species have become extinct due to land clearance or the introduction of non-native predators. Special programs have been introduced to protect highly endangered species, but scarcity of funding and bush fires render the programs unsustainable in the long term. Mäkipää believes that the re-introduction of domestic ownership of wild animals could revive many of Western Australia’s threatened species. Battle of Australia is a small-scale awareness-raising campaign that aims to foster a more balanced relationship between animals and humans, and highlights the unique biodiversity that still exists, for the moment, in Australia.
