Landmarks such as the Sunshine Coast's Big Pineapple and Coffs Harbour's Big Banana were unknown in the days when Arthur Streeton was painting his Australian landscapes.
But Brisbane artist Tracey Benson is creating works which make you wonder 'what if..?'
A masters student at the University of Queensland's Art History Department, Ms Benson has used her fascination with the 'big' phenomenon to create images of such tourist attractions juxtaposed on landscape paintings by famous artists such as Streeton and Conrad Martens.
Using computer-generated images, Ms Benson is examining the relationship between Australian identity and landscape in both her practical work and her thesis. National identity, cultural difference, consumerism, kitsch and the tourism industry are recurring themes of her project, Big Banana Time Inc.
'I use the vast number of 'big' things such as the Big Pineapple, the Big Banana and the Big Cow as primary subjects for a playful look at Australia's cultural condition,' she said.
'The project is a study of the image of Australia that is promoted internationally to attract tourists. Although the work may appear playful and humorous, it also investigates issues which challenge familiar notions of cultural identity.
'I am using computer-generated images to produce a range of kitsch works which include things like napkins, coasters, placemats and toys, and which parody souvenir products.'
She has toured many of Australia's 'big' icons, including the Big Shell at Tewantin, the Big Cow at Nambour, the Big Prawn at Ballina, the Big Merino at Goulburn and the Big Worm at Bass in Victoria.
Ms Benson's project looks at the role of such objects in cultural tourism and the Australian economy, weaving them with her own childhood memories for the purpose of critiquing notions of national identity.
'My personal experiences and position as a third-generation Anglo-Australian operate as a means of informing my visual arts practice,' she said.
The project also challenges popular conceptions about art and objects which are specifically directed at national identity.
'I am interested in the spatial relationship between the object and its environment. For instance, if you place an object in an art gallery then it is defined as an art object, signifying high culture,' she said.
'If that same object is located at a shopping centre or tourist attraction then it is characterised as a commondity or a souvenir rather than a cultural object.'
While capitalising the novelty value of 'big' tourist attractions, Ms Benson said her work looked at these places as 'cultural specimens', presenting a 'phantasmagoric tourist experience'.
'The monolithic form supposedly represents the primary produce of the region, and the mass-produced souvenirs recreate the district as a world in miniature,' she said.
'This take-home memory of the tourist experience acts as a form of witnessing and authentication, even though the souvenir was made in China, Taiwan or Korea.'
Ms Benson uses electronic media in a variety of formats including laser copy collage, image transfer techniques, computer-generated imagery and digital sound and imaging processes transferred to video.
'By appropriating early colonial paintings and collaging them with contemporary landmarks, I have sought to open a discussion of the role of landscape in Australian art history,' she said.
'By juxtaposing and layering historical material and contemporary tourist images of the landscape, I have tried to highlight the complexity of our national identity rather than present a portrait of a monoculture.'
The result has been several exhibitions for both her 'souvenir' items - including at the Big Pineapple - and for a video work called My Country which was central to her presentation at the State University of New York's 1997 annual graduate conference in April.
'I hope this work will be shown at a number of the 'big' things in Australia and overseas, as a means of obtaining a wider audience and escaping the sometimes limiting experience of exhibiting in art galleries,' she said.
In May, Ms Benson's edible installation Glut was part of the opening event of the Brisbane Fringe Festival. Glut looked at national identity through the use of party food including Australia-shaped scones, fairy bread, pavlova and thousands of lollies to highlight Australia's identity as excessive and wasteful in light of its consumption of Western culture and ideals.
Welcome to Oz will be shown at Brisbane's Metro Arts Gallery in November, and My Country will be presented at University College Dublin's In the wake of the law conference in September.
Ms Benson's website is http://www.uq.edu.au/~artbenso.
For more information, contact Tracey Benson on (07) 3255 1409.
