The hip-aching, leg-cramping, sleep-deprived discomfort of 24 hours of flying from Sydney, Australia to London is certainly nothing compared to that undertaken by my Australian forebears—the convict, the free-woman, the Northern Irish and Irish farmer immigrants, or the German farmers who left from Bremen, Germany.
It does provide time to think about the why of this journey and what I will take from the experience. Over recent years, the debate about our national identity has left me feeling increasingly displaced. The intellectual me rationalises this as the discomfort that comes from truth-telling—it’s not meant to be easy. The emotional me feels I don’t have a part to play in future Australia. Yet, I feel deeply connected to the landscapes and ecosystems of inland New South Wales and the other parts of Regional Australia I visit in my travels. Despite having travelled the UK and Europe in the mid 1990s, and having returned to various areas since, I’ve often wondered whether I’d feel more at home in County Wexford or County Antrim, Cornwall or Bremen. I’m doubtful.
I’ve been thinking about my relative, writer, Miles Franklin, who spent many years in London, some of it in the very area I’ve been staying, the Bloomsbury area. I’m sure she travelled and spent many years overseas to better understand her national identity and just what Australia meant to her. Despite being disillusioned at times, she did return.
This trip to the UK is largely about looking back over my work of recent years, a reflection on what I’ve achieved, what I’m still curious about, what stories might yet be told and where I might want to go in my creative practice over the next few years. Yes, as always, there are projects on the go as well—some official and some not yet official but experiments in refining my practice.
I’m now sitting in my studio on Skye—mesmerised by curtains of showers drifting across the strait towards the Isle of Raasay, cloud cover changing the light at play, and jackdaws surfing on the breeze directly in front of me, taking deep breaths following my week in Shropshire with my collaborator of five years, Andrew Howe. We were paired in 2018 by Gudrun Filipska of (Arts) Territory Exchange and it’s proven to be a fruitful and impactful creative relationship. For my visit, Andrew organised gatherings, walks and meetings with artists, farmers, and members of his community to talk over ideas around interdisciplinary projects. It was mentally (and physically) exhausting, but my mind was firing.
Photos from the Unherd! Walking the Land event on Whixall Moss (1 August) and time talking about the feasibility of establishing international connections for the new SOIL+AiR project with farmers and creatives in Shropshire.
My time in the UK is being book-ended by time in London. The first two days providing opportunity to stretch the legs after the flight and see things I didn’t see in the 1990s, which included a hideous visit to the Britsh Museum with a heaving mass of largely disinterested, unmasked tourists churning through the halls and back out through the gift shop. The British Library was an unexpected gem of a place, with it’s Animals exhibition (with sound installations), and another to come back to in a few weeks on digital storytelling. I’ll also be catching up with Andrew Stuck on my return, one of the founders of Walk. Listen. Create. I’m a grand jury member of Sound Walk September and an ambassador for WLC, so it’ll be wonderful to meet Andrew face-to-face for the first time.
These face-to-face meetings with people I’ve come to know online over the years has been a real pleasure—Andrew Howe, photographer Ian Dawson—who we met for breakfast on a lake outside Glasgow on the way to Skye), and in a few weeks, Andrew Stuck. This underscores my belief that you can meet incredibly interesting, genuine individuals through social media and online networks. These connections and networks are lifelines for my practice.
Then there are the serendipitous conversations with complete strangers—the tattooed cafe owner of 10 years on Tavistock Place and Marchmont Street in London who used to work in film and television but left due to misogyny; the Costco cafe owner near Cartwright Gardens who came to Glasgow in 1996 from another country who spent three months not being able to understand the Scottish accent; and the chatty young couple from Glasgow who had just done a cruise and were returning home with a mountain of luggage, waiting with us at Euston train station, sharing stories and tips for getting around Glasgow and the West Coast of Scotland; the elderly museum volunteer in Shrewsbury who wanted to share what she knew about Roman culture in the area and to show us her favourite object in the collection because she’s so passionate about history; the artists and farmers I met in Shrewsbury who shared snippets of their lives and loves with me over a week there; and the Budget car rental staffer who turned out to be a foodie with great tips for where to eat in Glasgow and Skye.
The coming month on the Isle of Skye as an artist in residence at The Admiral’s House, thanks to WASPS Studios, is just the punctuation I need at this point. It’s time to unwind from a huge five years of investigation, creativity and exhibitions/ presentations—Eye of the Corvus, Mosses and Marshes, Inhalare, Sonic Territories: Wambuul, and more recently Vaticinor for Regional Futures. The views from my picture window and the lack of manmade noise reaching me in the studio have already had an impact on my resting heartrate—the lowest its been for some time.
I woke this morning in another strange bed, nearly two weeks after leaving Australia, feeling a very long way from home. Time and distance has already started to work its magic. My daughter sent me photos overnight of my artist profile in the RM Williams OUTBACK Magazine that had yet to hit the newsstands when I left. It is somewhat surreal to be so far away from the place that is central to my story as an artist to date; central also to those who went before me—the farmers and the creatives of my family. Our stories are shaped by place and the times we live in. I’m hopeful my time in a small rural community on Skye will give me the space and the tools to reshape my narrative and help me find a way forward where what I do as a creative contributes to the future.
Updates on the UK trip are also documented on Instagram and Facebook
* I have self-funded this trip and residency.
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