First impressions
Sun, sea, wealth: it’s all here in excess. Freo (that’s Fremantle to us Pommies) is a small city that sits just south of Perth on the west coast of Australia. By morning it bakes in the blinding light of the sun, yet is tempered at three in the afternoon by a punctual and cooling breeze from the ocean, fondly nicknamed the Fremantle Doctor.
Fremantle has a reputation as a lefty, liberal, anything goes sort of place yet its bohemian days appear to be dwindling, if the reams of fancy cafes selling tall-skinny-lattes-with-extra-froth are anything to go by. The Arts Centre, located centrally, is really quite beautiful. Set on a historic site that was once WA’s first mental asylum built in the mid nineteenth century, its spacious, leafy, sun-dappled setting is at odds with its no doubt dark and turbulent history. My first impressions of the place leave me feeling very lucky to be affiliated with such a lively and long-standing organization.
My work has often had a time-based aspect to it whereby physical changes take place within a work, either during an exhibition or prior to it. My proposal for the residency, sent from my freezing studio in Hackney Wick, was to exploit the bright, white sunlight of WA to explore the effects of the sun on found objects and materials.
A much welcomed date in the Australian calendar (which varies according to one’s suburb or town) is Hard Rubbish Day, when residents leave their unwanted goods out on the verge to be collected. This means bin junkies like me have a field day. Given that the treasures left out on the street more often than not include perfectly functioning, quality electrical goods there is money to be made, but that is another story. I plan to make work using the things that I find in the hard rubbish collection, exploring the influence of sunlight on objects that are neglected or unwanted.
