I embarked on a month-long journey to Mparntwe from Gadigal land. Through revisiting landscapes I played in as a child, I came back to Her. It was an emotional ride. Forgotten memories flooded back to me through timeless travel, moving through ever-changing landscapes and endless horizons. I remembered how she felt seeing this magical scene for the first time.
The desert gave me silence
A place for reflection
Beauty within isolation
The desert showed me it’s parallels with illness
Lonely, abandoned, feared
adapting and surviving within the harshest of conditions,
The innate resilience and wisdom that comes with both.
She showed me death, death that comes in a place like this
Death followed alongside the thousands of kms of stretched roads.
You didn’t know
But your body gives back to the bodies that need your body to survive.
We need bodies to survive.
The pilgrimage to the red centre has been something I’ve wanted to do for years but been unable to due to illness. Not sure if my body was ready for this trip. I was merely surviving at some points but I made it regardless.
I spent 6 weeks in material research at Watch This Space. Playing, exploring and testing materials I collected on the way. Exploring new forms of creating like natural dying and collage. I dove deep into practice which I haven’t been able to do for some time.
Depicting the things I struggle to speak with words. Conveying my internal world through material exploration, I found myself playing with textiles (a medium I connect with body, skin and flesh), playing with tension, weight and sensory experiences. Connecting and contrasting materials creating poetics in form.
