Susan Hauri-Downing & Tarsh Bates in Beverley
Artist: Susan Hauri-Downing (she/her) & Tarsh Bates (they/them), WA
Work: In progress
Location: Beverley, Western Australia
Community partner: Beverley Station Arts
About the Artist:
Susan Hauri-Downing works at the intersections of social work and artistic methodologies. Her art practice focuses on bio-cultural diversity, ecological grief and loss and interspecies relationships. Previous work explores species loss, ties to "home", food security, ecological complexity, and conservation practices. She also facilitates connections with individuals and groups to explore ecological and social justice issues, providing safe spaces for art as therapy and creative eco-literacy. She has 20 years of experience working with people from diverse backgrounds and her trauma sensitive practice is dedicated to strengthening and improving the well-being of those with whom she works and the natural systems in which we live.
Tarsh Bates is formed from the exhalation of cyanobacteria and stars, a complex and diverse entanglement of Homo sapiens, Candida albicans, other microbial species, culture and technology. They forage knowledge, materials, ideas, tools and hunt transient alliances. They are interested in the work of olfaction, the sensual caress of odorants on the membranes of cells, volatile organic chemicals that are ingested, digested, excreted through the living, the non-and the semi-living: erotic inter-and intra-species communications and metabolic sense-abilities.
Susan and Tarsh are currently collaborating on the Scents of Solastalgia project, which examines the significance of olfactory landscapes to the rapidly changing, multi-species experiences of place through a series of eco-sensory residencies, workshops and artworks.
About the Community Partner:
Lovingly restored, the Old Railway Station sits in the heart of the rural town of Beverley (pop. 1700), on the Avon River, just 100 minutes east of Perth. What was the station master’s house is now an artist’s residency and the station has been lovingly restored to house the town’s art collection, which was begun in 1967 with bequests from Sir Claude Hotchin. The collection is open to the public Thurs-Sun with the help of artists-in-residence, in return for living in the station residence rent free. The surrounds have been transformed into a carriage garden and an impressive outdoor theatre built to cater for all types of performing arts.
Susan Hauri-Downing, Contact zones: soliciting the lip, 2014, digital photographic print on Hähnemuhle, 70x100cm.
