Rural Utopias Residency: Bennett Miller in Mount Barker Stage 2 reflection #1

Bennett Miller is currently working with the community of Mount Barker. This residency forms part of one of Spaced’s current programs, Rural Utopias.

Bennett Miller works across sculpture, installation, video and performance. In more recent years Miller's work has moved out of the gallery and into the public realm, through a series of live art performances for festivals and outdoor contexts.

Here, Bennett shares an update from Mount Barker. from his second residency for Rural Utopias.

Weeks 1 and 2 of this second stage were really great. It was during the school holidays, so the family could come with me and we had an excellent time. I’m not really a winter person- I live near the beach and like to swim all the time- but it turns out I really quite like winter if it is in the ‘Great Southern’ and even more so if it is in the Porongorup. Feels all sleepy and misty, you can have fires, and less things wriggle in the grass. I’ve been down there for a part of each season now and I think winter is the time to visit if you haven’t ever been before. At times it feels like a completely different country to the

rest of WA, and early in the morning- looking the right way- it can feel like a different time too. I guess you have to think that’s a good thing- but I definitely do- so I can understand why people find their ‘Rural Utopia’ here.

As planned I spent a lot of time on the Kalgan River. There were three of us this time so we couldn’t use the paddle board but we had a little tender boat with an electric engine to putter along in. The river is beautiful, and passes through most of the environments that I’ve been spending all this time in. The people that bought farms that border it are onto a good thing. It’s a type of environment I don’t feel all that familiar with but one that I really like- has a kind of ancient or mystical feeling- very quiet, full of big and strange birds. It is also an interesting place because it has contested and overlapping histories - Indigenous, French & English, and has apparently been running for 400 million years. I’ve been to about 5 points on the actual water and have followed the entire thing on Google Maps. Unsurprisingly when you look at it the virtual way you can find some pretty negative impacts on it from roads and industry.