Marine Biologist
Will Jones
Background
B.Sc. Hons Marine Biology; PADI Master SCUBA Diver Trainer; PADI Medic First Aid Instructor; Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Cert. – Marine Education & Conservation Consultant, Head Marine Biologist of ‘Mini Marine Biologists’; President & Founder Marine Discovery Centre Bondi Beach; National Coordinator: United Nations International Year of the Ocean 1998 & UNESCO International Year of the Reef 1997; 2003 Centenary Medal for ‘outstanding services to the protection of Australia’s marine environment’
Will is a marine biologist, environmental educator, diving instructor and passionate marine conservationist. Originally from the UK, he studied Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool’s Isle of Man Marine Station – with a focus on Fisheries Biology through the biochemical genetics of the Manx Scallop. Will has lived and worked all around the world – from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville to the Bimini Biological Research Station in the Bahamas; studying widely – from biochemical tags in single-celled Foraminifera, to energy budgets of the slightly larger Lemon Shark. He came back to Australia for good in mid '96 after fulfilling a childhood dream (age 4 decision was made to work with the Cousteaus) where he worked as the Resident Marine Biologist at the Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort.
With three years of classroom experience under his belt from teaching English to young learners in Japan, a tourist visa and a desire to use the Internet for marine environmental education, he met up with some enthusiastic Professors at the University of Sydney and 5 years promptly flew by! Together they created a multi award winning on-line encyclopaedia of marine life www.reef.edu.au, as part of running the 1997 International Year of the Reef for Australia. After subsequently coordinating Australia’s United Nations International Year of the Ocean program in 1998, he ended up as educational consultant on the National Maritime Museum's Ocean Planet exhibition in 1999.
Since that time the creation of a world-class marine environmental education centre on Australia’s most famous beach was all-enveloping and the resultant ‘Underwater Bondi Experience’ was a powerfully inspirational combination of unique AV elements together with real fish set into aquaria that are part of the world’s first re-creation of an actual dive site. After four years of operation, sadly the facility was forced to close because of a change in governmental funding priorities. The Marine Discovery Centre Bondi Beach Inc. continues to offer its popular marine environmental educational excursions and has a mission of ‘Changing the way we look, feel and act towards our precious marine & coastal environments – achieving conservation through entertainment, education and collaboration’. The MDC Bondi is a non-profit charitable association made up of committed members and partner organisations, with a founding Advisory Board headed up by the ABC’s Robyn Williams AM, Professor Michael Archer and Professor Frank Talbot – for more information on the various educational programs go to www.marinediscovery.org.au.
Will is the Executive Director of the Marine Discovery Centre Bondi Beach Inc. and was the environmental rep on Waverley Council’s ‘Bondi Beach Forum’ and their ‘Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee’ for many years. He was on the Bondi Chamber of Commerce Tourism Sub Committee and was one of the community reps that helped develop Waverley’s 10-year Strategic Plan. He also helped set up the national network of Marine Discovery Centres www.mdca.org.au. He was the NSW State Rep for the Marine Education Society of Australasia and was a community rep on the Federal Government’s Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. He was also previously State Rep for Marine Conservation on the NSW Marine Parks Advisory Council for 4 years; as well as the President of the NSW branch of the Australian Marine Conservation Society for 4 years. In 2003 he was awarded a Centenary Medal for ‘outstanding services to the protection of Australia’s marine environment’.
Will lives at Bondi Beach and is married with two young teens, so the preservation of the marine & coastal environment has now taken on an even more direct and personal dimension.
How does your work engage/consider the environment and different sites and ecologies?
I think I consider place primarily by placing my body within it. Whether I am in my studio in Petersham, or doing a residency in India, I am feeling with all senses, and always look to engage with different sites with curiosity, intuition and respect. There is a lightness about my work, as it often can be packed away in my bag, or at times not exist in tangible form at all. Bigger pieces, I tend to use again, having multiple lives in the process of my work. I chose performance because it allows me to be in my own body, but also because it was highly transportable and literally free! I realise now as well how it disrupts the commodifying of artworks and the mass production of things, rather replacing those with moments of connection, liveness often witnessed once (if at all), and committed (sometimes) to memory. I think is not so much what environment I am engaging with but how I am engaging with it, through actions which are to be minimal. When we do walking meditation in Zen, we slowly circle around the room twice, attentively, mindfully, in sync with all inside and out. This is how I want to engage with the environment ongoing.
Could you share your experiences in interacting with this specific Country/place (Nielsen Park and surrounding areas) and the thoughts or reflections it has evoked in you?
I have only spent a handful of time around Nielsen Park, mostly for this residency project with a specific focus; although it was nearly always coupled with getting to hang out with Maya. Mixing friendship with the work led to honest discussions about not necessarily how connected I feel to it, but disconnected. Not knowing how to approach the site, or whatever I did there would be an imposition of sorts. I could only borrow, and tread lightly knowing this isn't my land, I am simply a visitor. I reflected how could I acknowledge the years of systematic dispossession of land, and displacement of the Gadigal and Birrabirragal people, and pay respects to thousands of years of indigenous knowing, thinking, and dreaming woven into this area? What comment, engagement, intervention is there to make by a non-indigenous artist whose only association with this area of the harbour is it's colonial history marked by the big green-roofed house next to Milk Beach that her grandmother spent her childhood in? I am still unsure if any engagement of mine is adequate enough, but I could only respond from my own experiences, now, here, in my own body and practice. On visiting the surrounding rock pools made me realise how much we humans miss. I could never find enough time to spend there, too busy to really slow down and begin to perceive all the life going under the surface. To perceive sea urchin time, hermit crab time, sea anemone time, takes time and I grew frustrated how I felt more and more these days like I didn't have enough of it. The complexities and nuances of these little worlds I know nothing of, other than knowing they exist. Everything is alive. And the same could be said about everything really. To lean into this, understand this, and express this.
Please share your experiences with intertidal areas, the ocean, or any anecdotes/ connections you've forged with the land.
I have very few experiences with intertidal areas, and my moments with the ocean often revolve around simply going to the beach which I've done since childhood. Rather I think I feel more connected with the rivers of the world, winding, coursing, and the subject of a lot of philosophical and zen teachings, and personal travels. One of my strongest memories as an adult was in South Korea, just out of Seoul. I was alone, and camping by a gushing river, with nothing else to do but lay on the rocks all day. I remember not hearing anything other than water the entire trip as there were big grey granite boulders crumbled across this section of the river. No one else (bar a few fishermen) was there for those two days, just me with my little blue tent and some rice cakes. I was on river time, water time, rock time. After, I returned to the city I had enormous amounts of energy, it was insane how transformative that time was for me at that moment. There was so much clarity, during and after, it was like I was cleansed. There is another story of camping beside another river alone in rural Korea, but I had to suddenly retreat in my white see-through nighty leaving my tent, after misunderstanding the policeman warning me of 'big rain' coming. That was quite a different experience, but still memorable... The work '100 bodies of water' was the first time I used temporary tattoos in my work (who knows, maybe the last). The idea came from a leaf that I stuck to my forehead with icy river water on travels in Himachal Pradesh, India. I printed out 100 tattoos as stills of the Ganges in Varanasi for this work, and provided a bucket of water and a sponge. I had friends tattooing my Dad, tattooing strangers, tattooing people on arms, legs, bellies, necks. Although I heard it was hard to get the tattoos off, this was the point. To let them stay, this sacred body of water merging with our own body of water until eventually disappearing. That it became personal and everyone created their own story with it. I guess our experiences with the land, and water bodies are personal, and changing. The tattoo was a reminder that we are part of this interconnected web of phenomena, we are not excluded from it.
How does your work and leadership evolve from within you, and how do you ensure you can provide support for those who are learning from you? How do you create spaces for learning and collaboration with other people and the environment?
Work evolves not only from within me but from around me. I get a lot of support from friends both in and out of the art world, and family. I hope in some way to create a space that is level, and generous so people, such as the audience feel safe enough to enter the work. Participation and collaboration for me is not about making people feel uncomfortable or implicated, but welcome. The door is open, and you can walk through it or not, both is ok. Creating a moment, an action together is simple with a few instructions, but it requires the participants to trust you. Trust and authenticity are important. There is also collaboration with the environment. When I was making the daisy chain work for mum, it was a collaboration with the clover flowers, the grass, the bees, the lawn mowers, the seasons. It was tender, fluid, and always changing. If it was winter, it was impossible. Learning to make work like this helps me understand how not to make work sometimes.
How do you create spaces for contemporary leadership, learning and collaboration with other people and the environment?
My work and leadership evolves tentatively but with focus. When people come together to discuss and learn, an approach that relies on openness, honesty, respect and dedication is required. I try to uphold this in all my movements as artist, collaborator, student and teacher.
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Floorplan Studio is based in Cadigal country, part of the Eora Nation nowadays referred to as Sydney, Australia. The Gadigal People are part of seven clans in the Eora Nation and have an extensive culture, ecology, stories and songlines unique to their region. Floorplan pays respect to First Nations people and their Elders, Past, Present and Emerging.
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