#afterthefire #daybyday
#afterthefire #daybyday – visual diary, projects and research.
A personal response to fire, loss, care and regeneration following the devastating Australian summer bushfires of 2019/2020.
The day before summer solstice in the midst of the fire season a bushfire roared through the bush home I share with my partner, trees, plants, fungi, critters and creatures. Although we had prepared for this event as best we could we had feared the worst. The winds changed direction three times, the fire burned back on itself and its flames left little untouched. The bush was incinerated. We lost our storage and workshed. Yet our modest house survived despite fire licking at its concrete edges and leaving crack lines on some of our windows. Five days later we returned to live in our miraculous marooned house amidst a sea of ash to attend to the slow care of our once bush home.
Having documented much of the flora and fauna in this place before the fire, I find myself in the middle of a post-fire research site. I spend a lot of time looking at the ground and staring at the trees and their remaining boughs. The regenerating bush in all its complexity is my collective teacher. As I continue to avidly document, my observations and conversations with first nation friends and teachers, environmental scientists, fire ecologists and entomologists over the next year are contributing to the research and development of new performance works and projects. The research and development phase has been made possible with the support of Create NSW and Australia Council for the Arts project funding.
2022 DARKswell audio-visual performance HERE
2021 Dark Interludes with Living Room Theatre HERE
2020-2021 #afterthefire #daybyday a Visual Diary HERE
2021 Rescript a performance installation HERE
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundungurra and Tharawal peoples and remember that sovereignty was never ceded.
This project is supported by the NSW government through Create NSW and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.