First and foremost the artists acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we live and work, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. This project is hosted on the land of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung people, with most of these moments collected whilst walking on Wurundjeri Country. We acknowledge their continuing connection to the land and waters, and thank them for protecting since time immemorial the beautiful places that we explored and described through the course of this project. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

The Sensory Art Walk Scavenger Hunt for children was created by the 10-year-old daughter of one of the artists. As you journey through Footscray’s streets and hidden laneways, children are encouraged to search for small details within the paste-up images and recorded sounds, as well as within the urban landscape. Watch ants moving around. Hear a bird chirping. Look up at the clouds. Notice shadows. Look closely at the collected images. Can you find sticks, leaves, shells and bones? How many boxes can you tick?

Read by Avrille, Claire and Steph

THE MANIFESTO

The Manifesto is something of a collective stream-of-consciousness. It captures snippets of a months-long conversation and exploration shared by Avrille, Stephanie and Claire, connecting over Zoom as mothers and artists.

These Zoom catch ups usually took place at 8pm until late, with our babies and children in various stages of asleep and awake. Interruptions from restless children were frequent and the three of us saw into each other’s lives and nighttime routine. Avrille took notes on her computer, hastily capturing snippets of our conversations. The result is a rambling Manifesto capturing the essence of our shared art practice and experience during various stages of COVID lockdown. The Zoom meetings provided time and space to reflect and collect our thoughts as we searched for the intersections in our work and explored our developing collaboration together.

The words of the Manifesto may not make sense to the reader/listener, and that’s OK. Through this work we wanted to honour the space of intersection between the three of us exactly as it was – not overworked or over-thought or over-edited . The words have been captured as they spilled out, and as they were collected in the moment. Some of the words from the Manifesto have been embedded into the paste up images, in ways that felt right to us.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Collectively, Avrille Burrows, Claire Weigall and Stephanie Shu-jen have a varied skill set of installation, sculpture, textile arts, writing and story-telling. As mothers, professionals, and artists they have worked with infants through to primary school children providing opportunities for curiosity, learning and creativity. In Stephanie’s words: “I am Inspired by my innate desire to look, dig, narrate, scrunch, balance, smell, photograph, shape, collect, and display, and I am passionate about curating spaces with natural provocations for creating and sharing.” These words resonate with all three artists, for whom the experience of art-making together and exploring these common threads was consolidating and inspiring.  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the business owners in Footscray (Slice Shop, Yours Truly Barbershop, Counterweight Vinyl and Espresso, Baby Snakes, Newtone Betta Home Living, Bar Thyme and The Cheeky Pint) who have allowed us to adorn their walls with our paste ups.

Thanks also to Maribyrnong Council for their support via the Love Your Local grant, making this project possible.

We would especially like to thank Benjamin Baker and Andree Ruggeri from Trocadero Projects for their gentle curation, mentoring and encouragement, as well as many hours of hard work and dedication behind the scenes.

Reflections on Process

This project is an experimental collaboration shaped by the context of Melbourne’s sixth lockdown. 

In September 2021 we were excited to learn that our proposal to undertake a residency to develop new work together had been accepted by Trocadero Projects. The residency promised the opportunity for shared time in the studio and we looked forward to engaging in an intuitive process led by curiosity and playful exchange. We hoped that this process would provide us with unexpected outcomes and new directions to design an immersive experience for the youngest members of our community and their caregivers. 

Sadly the residency was not to be. Lockdown rules meant that we were unable to meet up in person. As a means to connect we began sharing, via recorded voice memos and photographs snapped on our phones, the small moments and observations that came from our daily ventures outside the confines of home. Our practice was about immersing ourselves in the wildness and the intricate detail of the world around us, noticing the little things, capturing the accidental moments – because that was comforting and enriching to us.  Sometimes we played with the natural materials around us – sticks, leaves, shells and bones – an intuitive process  of ephemeral art making. Sometimes we simply took the time to just sense and see.

A turning point came when Avrille shared a recording that she made as she walked under a bridge. The echoing ambience in the tiny sound bite transported us all to another place and we realised the transformative power of recorded voice memos as a way of communicating. The project evolved when we began thinking about ways of correspondence, and about the comfort and encouragement that comes from call and response. To the receivers, the voice recordings and images, shared in the moment, were welcome gifts, with the power to transport us to another place amidst the monotony of lockdown. 

For the giver/creator, a daily walk within the allowed 5km radius became more than a passive observation of the world. When we spent time documenting kinetic descriptions of the environments we inhabit – the sensory experiences, the gestures, the nuances…we discovered that the process of sharing deepened our experience.

We created a space together that we quickly came to treasure.

In this space it was possible to feel seen and heard, and to ease the isolation of lockdown.
In this space, it was possible to create something even if we only had the energy for a walk around the block.
In this space it was possible to make art alongside our children.  
In this space it was possible to engage our children in our process.
In this space time skewed and stretched, as we took in our surroundings. 
In this space it was possible to feel a creative fire light. 

We asked – if I leave something here…a carefully balanced stone or a found treasure placed inside the hollow of a tree, will it still be here when I come back?
We noticed the way the same place feels different from one day to the next.
In a time that was difficult and isolating we felt pleasure and connection in the smallest interactions, creation and destruction.

Initially there was a seeking of a moment, or a ‘thing’ to capture but as our practice deepened there was an innate sense that moments were being brought to us. 

In this context, our project evolved and developed. We realised that in order to make art, we needed to elevate our everyday walks as an art practice. We asked what would happen if we viewed the accumulation of these small tasks as a cumulative, collaborative work? We were struck by the parallel to motherhood as an accumulation of small tasks and gentle observations, an exploration of being and connecting. 

Now that lockdown is over and the world is opening up, we are all returning to the frenetic pace of normality…but within this new normal we yearn to hold onto the shared moments that gave us solace during a period of social isolation. 

It is easy to feel too tired to create.
It is easy to feel like we don’t have permission to create.
It is easy to feel too caught up in routine to create.

This work is a reminder that even in the urban landscape, small discoveries and creative opportunities are never far away.

— Avrille, Claire and Steph