Loren Kronenmyer is currently working with the community of Esperance and hosted by Cannery Arts Centre. This residency forms part of one of SPACED’s current programs, Circular Economies.

Loren is an artist living and working in regional Lutruwita/Tasmania. Her works span objects, interactive and live performance, experimental media art, and large-scale world-building projects aimed at exploring ecological futures and survival skills.

Here is an update from her first two weeks in Esperance:

On 20 August 2024, Loren Kronemyer travels to Esperance with her meta-technician hosting, and sub-residents Jessee Lee Johns and Rose Kingdom-Barron. They spend the night at Lake Magic, taking back to back moon meetings by the industrial salt lake, before arriving into Esperance the following day. The four artists visit op shops, and a recreation of Stonehenge, before a long night singing karaoke at the Pier Hotel. On the 23rd, the sub-residents depart, and Loren begins her research in earnest.

Clay pigeons, aka clay targets, aka skeets, used to be made of glass with feathers inside of them. For a time they were made of clay, but these days, a modern clay pigeon consists of approximately 53% limestone to 47% petroleum pitch, both materials distilled from ancient living matter. 

The limestone needs to be ground into a fine powdered talc, and the pitch heated until it is liquid, at around 200 degrees celsius. The two compounds are combined and stirred thoroughly at this temperature, making a clay-like mixture that is then extruded into molds.  Once the molds cool, the cast object can be removed and painted its vivid color. 

A woman at the clay target club tells me that an earlier generation used to do their shooting practice on the beach, facing out into the ocean. The bright orange clay disks would spin though the sky towards the islands that rim Esperance Bay, then blasted by buckshot, they would sink into the sea. Eventually, these broken targets formed deep beds on the ocean floor, an orange reef of shattered fossils.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Western Australian Government’s voluntary buyback scheme. You own firearms in excess of the new regulations, you are allowed to surrender them at the local police station, and they will pay you a fee from the allotted budget of 64.3 million dollars. Your gun will be transported to a centralised controlled location, where it will be crushed alongside thousands of others. Please do not crush your own gun; only the police or a licensed gunsmith are allowed to crush guns. Anyone found crushing their own guns will be in violation of state laws.

Images courtesy of the artist.

More information about the Circular Economies artists, host communities and projects as they unfold can be found by subscribing to SPACED’s monthly email newsletter, and following SPACED on Facebook and Instagram. 

Circular Economies is produced as a joint partnership by PICA - Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and SPACED.

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