Exhibition: Meet Me In The Garden with Claire Billie Bushby

Mar 31

Meet Me In The Garden - exhibition opening and artist conversation, featuring artists Claire Billie Bushby, W. Sze Tsang, and Mark Wahlsten

Meet Me In The Garden first began during SPACED: Know Thy Neighbour #3, when Bushby was invited in 2021–22 to work with the City of Canning community. Supported by curator Mayma Awaida, and (former) SPACED Programs Manager Soula Vouyoucalos-Veyradier, Bushby’s research residency focused on suburban gardening practices and ecology, and has evolved into an ongoing community-driven project. Although the project had not come to fruition by the time of the Know Thy Neighbour #3 exhibition, Bushby has continued to work on the project and we’re very proud of how it has progressed.

SPACED is delighted to share that Meet Me In The Garden has grown into a much larger body of work, with an exhibition at Rockingham Arts Centre this April and a residency at PICA in May 2025.

You’re invited to join them for the official opening and artist conversation!

Meet Me In The Garden – Opening and Artist Conversation
Saturday 12 April 2025
4:00 – 6:00 pm
Rockingham Arts Centre
11 Kent Street, Rockingham WA 6168
RSVP Registration here

This special event will include a conversation between the exhibiting artists and guest facilitator Soula Vouyoucalos-Veyradier, who now leads the North Metropolitan TAFE Creative Galleries and Programs. Together, we’ll explore how art might shift attitudes and behaviours toward the environment, and reflect on the meanings of nature and culture, the role of plants in our lives, and the vital lessons gardens offer as spaces of cultivation, care, and change.

This exhibition allows individuals to share their unique and diverse experiences of suburban gardens and nature reserves. It highlights the mental health benefits of gardening and the creativity involved. The focal points of this project are suburban gardens in Western Australia, where connections between gardeners, plants, and the local ecology are examined through sound, print, sculpture, and video artwork based on material collected during garden visits and interviews.

About The Artists

Claire Billie Bushby is an artist and curator interested in collaborative and participatory practices embracing interdependence with human and non-human environments. Their work is multidisciplinary, combining documentary processes with textile, drawing, photography, sound, video and social events.

W. Sze Tsang is a composer working across temporalities and histories. Tsang’s practice explores how combining sounds, visual, geospatial information and environmental data can express the multi-layered narratives on history and climate within place.

Mark Wahlsten is an illustrator and designer interested in understanding the landscapes he belongs to, how he grieves and how to feel useful, through examining barriers arising from colonial designs of communication systems.

For more information: rockingham.wa.gov.au/exhibitions

Image courtesy the artist: Claire Billie Bushby Sample page from Shirley – Willeton’s Garden Journal, 2024, Handmade journal with Sumi E Japanese paper, 148.5 x 210mm

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