Rural Utopias Residency: Elizabeth Pedler in Wellstead #6

Elizabeth Pedler is currently working with the community of Wellstead. This work is one of over ten, forming part of one of Spaced’s current programs, Rural Utopias.

An artist interested in the range of participation possible in art, Elizabeth's practice spans from playful and interactive installations to collaborative relational aesthetics. Identity, food, and community involvement are areas of particular focus, and have led to significant artistic development in her recent arts practice, engaging with audiences through the sharing of experiences and storytelling.

Here, Elizabeth shares an update from Wellstead.

Coming back for the last week of the Rural Utopias residency I brought my husband Andrew with me to Wellstead, his first visit to the town or Windi Windi. We arrived late afternoon on Saturday to the now-familiar Nissen hut, the week looming ahead of us.

Sunday I spent the afternoon with Penny and Mick Moir. We had a long conversation delving into their experiences of the Wellstead Pentathlon, Penny’s swimming lessons at Shed beach, and their encounters with the island. Both the island and the beach were close by, in view from where we were seated at Penny and Mick’s house overlooking the ocean. As we were talking, conversation regularly referred to geographic points nearby, such as the island, the cape, Schooner beach, the reef, and the pontoon. Being in sight of these features, the stories felt immediate, as if the layers and moments of time were held more closely here.

The days that followed were spent poring over recordings, cutting together snippets of talk and video, adjusting colour, exposure, and timing. As I edited a video of clouds, I watched them roll across the frame at 20 times their recorded speed. It felt like the time I’d spent here was accelerating as it came towards the close. Reviewing and patching together conversations, sounds, and sights I’d recorded, it was like I was experiencing these moments over again, all at once.

As I stayed inside editing, everyone worked busily around me to get the farm in order for the visitors coming Saturday night. Richard, Frank and John repaired walls, cut trenches, and built an outdoor toilet screened by a spiral of straw-bales. Andrew and Kerry painted walls, making the hut instantly fresh and bright. Stella appeared on Friday and built enclosures to protect the projectors from rain. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Andrew and I arranged, tested, and re-tested projectors, media players, and speakers. Ann, then Rumi and Mandakini, and then Pip turned up, and soon there were fairy lights lighting the gate, flowers and candles brightening the shed, and food cooking in the oven as everyone’s efforts wove together. Saturday afternoon arrived. Soon campers and guests were driving up and gathering in the shed, at 6pm projectors and sound got turned on. The rain that had been mizzling all day began coming down harder. Stella, Andrew, Ann, and Rumi worked out a shelter for an awkwardly angled projector from plastic sheet, a trestle table, wire, and star pickets, a bit of bush engineering to keep the projector out of the rain without obscuring the image onto the shearing shed.

The evening became a blur of faces and conversations. Richard and I gave a short speech to the assembled crowd at 7.30pm, and Richard read out a poem he’d written about the Nissen Hut. The little audience I’d expected was multiplied several times as more guests arrived. Walking through the hut to find Richard for the speech, every room was filled with a little knot of people watching the projections and listening to the stories. I saw a dozen locals clustered sitting and standing together, comparing notes about the crops and animals before them on the screen. Although it created complications, the rain was as much a cause for celebration as the projections. Farmers watched the fat drops falling through the streams of light, drink in hand, speculating about how much of this would be hitting the ground on their properties.

The event marked a celebratory but sudden end to the residency. By the following afternoon the car was packed full of projectors and other equipment, and I was driving back up to Perth, back up to a more structured, day-to-day existence. When departing however, there were no goodbyes, only talk of when I’d be down again, what would be happening the following season, who I had to speak to next.

 After spending weeks trying to see the landscape through the eyes of locals, in sharing the project with the community they could suddenly see themselves through my eyes, and see the details that had fascinated me: from the blue chalk marking on a sheep, to the bright yellowing green of the canola head, and the dew-laden burst of a native pink flower. In sharing what I’d seen through video, and them sharing their stories, it wove together something localised and contemplative, an exploration in place and time

-Elizabeth Pedler