Rural Utopias Residency: Jacky Cheng Witch and Windmill Presentation
Jacky Cheng is currently working with the community of Margaret River. This residency forms part of one of Spaced’s current programs, Rural Utopias.
Jacky Cheng is an artist and an art educator based in Broome, Western Australia. Cheng's work is fundamentally about identity and awareness through cultural activities and memories of home; country and relationships. Her significant concern are about correlating and weaving narratives from her native experiences whilst mapping the esoteric and social relationships of her origins and her new found home, environment and social surroundings.
Last month, Jacky Cheng presented her work in progress as a part of her Rural Utopias artist in residency at the Witch and Windmill. Cheng reflects on the experience below.
On 25 February, we gathered at the Witch and Windmill and we were in great company of Margaret River and Witchcliffe community members, Soula Veyradier, former Spaced program director and Miranda Johnson, current program director and AGWA curator for the Rural Utopias project.
Miranda kicked off by acknowledging Country, welcomed everyone, and introduced Spaced and the Margaret River Rural Utopia chapter, artist and collaborators. Soula was invited to provide insight about stage 1 of the project where we celebrated community involvement – The Paper Patchwork Blanket and the progression into stage 2. She thanked community members in stage 1 and host organisation Margaret River Makers in assisting me.
One of the important aspects of stage 2 is the involvement of collective conversations that highlight and celebrate the new Witch and Windmill in reflection and memory of the old Darnell’s.
Many hours spent with various individuals and special mention goes to Kerry, Barry and Des Darnell for sharing stories and spending time with me relaying information about the surrounding community and the legacy of Old Bill and Darnell’s General Store. Moments like these are important documentation for future reference. We presented the Darnell family a tribute plaque of Old Bill in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the Witchcliffe and Margaret River community. The plaque is now proudly displayed at The Witch and Windmill building.
Sam’s presentation held everyone’s attention as he expressed his deep love for materials; abandoned materials that were once new and shiny. Over time, these materials have lost their sparkle but have not lost their purpose and strength. He explained the journey of the construction of The Witch and Windmill and the combination of materials from old Darnell’s store, and other sources for the re-fabrication. I know collectively, everyone is incredibly impressed by the love, sweat and financial sacrifice he has contributed to revive the building. When we unveiled Sam’s sculpture, everyone gasped in awe and completely recognised his trademark – the use of found materials, very elegantly composed to resemble an altar reflecting on his concept about rebirth.
Next, Nigel presented his thoughts and written poetry and didactic titled Old Architecture is Natural Architecture which is also his working title for his painting. We revealed the cast-iron-lace frame and left the audience to wonder more about his final painting piece that will be ‘woven’ to the frame. All shall be revealed soon.
I had the pleasure to share my casting process and revealed the silicone mould and textures that I collected within the premise. They were selective surfaces but also textures that is familiar in tactility to echo the memory of the building. I intend to produce a series of paper cast with the same mould, each time diminishing the textures and metamorphosize the paper cast into an undistinguishable part of the building; then lay them in sequential manner to reflect transformational process – much like watching an image progressively disappear.
The presentation concluded with a collaborative community art activity. Everyone was invited to find, observe, and document interesting textures within the building; take an impression of the surface with a two-part silicone putty and cast it with clay (to be fired, framed, and displayed when completed). A documentation of the mould textures was recorded by stamping the texture in a handmade book for reference and possibly for future custodian of the building.
I suspect the collective community that were present that day will continue to relay our intention into the future – championing the adaptive reuse of buildings as a major role in the sustainable development of Australian communities as they offer so much to the landscape, identity and amenity of the communities they belong to.
Images courtesy of Jacky Cheng, photography by Stuart McMillan.
