Sep 08

Teapot Tales!

By Amy T Arts, Audio, Curation, Teapot Tales

Teapot Tales with Amy T, Barkly Square Ballarat East

I am excited to introduce my current project Teapot Tales, another creative extravaganza with many parts and partners but always with a comforting cuppa and the themes of friendship, fun, and welcome at its heart. Like so many of us around the hurting world, we are looking for ways to be of service, to connect meaningfully, and to use our skills to contribute good in some small way. As is my way, I have followed my curious nose, and things have converged interestingly in this project, my little offering of joy and collaboration at this moment in time.

The first workshop people can get involved with is kicking off this Saturday at TBH Studio, where you can come for cuppa and chat and decorate a teapot or teacup (2D and 3D options) that will become part of the art installation I’m creating at Barkly Square in my beloved Ballarat East, Wadawurrung Country.

With support from Regional Arts Victoria, I’m also pumped to have photographer Diana Paez on board to take people’s portraits with their creations, and of course I’ll be recording audio stories around people’s favourite tea memories, rituals and more! A little taster here to get you thinking of stories you might like to share. It features me and Diana and also two of my wonderful project mentors Mauz Hatcher and Holly Would (mentoring me along with Abbie Matthews and Lou Ridsdale, all pictured below). Legends!

There will be further workshops across various settings- intergenerational program with aged care and playgroup, Centre for Multicultural Youth, Barkly Square Tenants and community, and a September school holiday special- so keep an eye out or drop me a line if you’d like me to visit you or your group to get involved. I’ve set up a page here for info and fun.

Big thanks to Barkly Square’s Ballarat Men’s Shed for producing the cut out shapes for me for painting by the community (and delicious tea and lunch in Our Social Kitchen cafe!) plus all the generous donations of teapots! Some of these will be painted in workshops for the outdoor installation, and others will stay adorning the café windows : )

Thanks as always to Julio for helping with the whole shebang!

So how did this all come about? And what’s the go with me and tea?

Earlier the year I was struggling to find ongoing work in the GLAM field, so I decided to start a TAFE course (a Certificate VI in Health and Leisure) enabling me to do lifestyle activities in aged care and see if I can bring some of my skills that way. I have been doing placement at a local facility and learning the ropes and my oh my has it been both humbling and a joy. I have learnt so much and have so many ideas for activities.

Then! a couple of months ago I also began volunteering with the legend Lou Ridsdale at Food is Free Inc and Barkly Square, Ballarat East and was invited to activate the outdoor entranceway to this historic community and cultural hub with teapots. I said yes please! And the rest is history. Everything will come together in this creative installation, being launched as part of a special Barkly Square celebration on Saturday Nov 15^th (save the date!)

Me and tea : )

I grew up in a tea loving family, nothing fancy, but the simple appreciation of a cuppa in the morning or after work, and afternoon tea with visitors, maybe enjoying with some of mum’s chocolate cake. Somewhere around my teens I also got onto the relaxing herbals (tea and otherwise ; ) and still can’t go past a lovely hot chamomile. Tea has always been comforting but also aesthetic for me- choosing the cup, seeing the colours, arranging cosy chairs, delicious treats at hand. And I’ve always loved teapots for both their design and function. Here is a pic of me, aged maybe 15 being a silly teapot, and the other day ; )

Fast-forward and my wedding vows featured tea of course, and the joy it brings in our daily life at home; different types for different moments in the day: earl grey, ceylon, orange pekoe, vanilla rooibos, genmaicha, Turkish apple, chai with soy and honey, peppermint, rose, and lemon balm from the garden, or trying new things (Julian just came home from a trip to multicultural Sunshine with some delicious Iranian tea and biscuits, and a new teapot! The kettle is on now to sample, mmmm). Thank you Chinar International Food Market.

Sharing a cuppa- tea, coffee, whatever your pick- with different people, and across different cultures, or snatching a moment on your own is a chance to breathe, to taste, to converse, to look around and look within.

Working recently with traditional custodian Richard Collopy on the Manna Gum Stories project, he described the path he often walks (and ethos he takes) in First Nations education, as ‘the continuing cup of tea.’ Things are shared, shaken up, and importantly, they take the time and space they need. The idea of being able to sit down and talk together across different backgrounds and viewpoints seems vital, especially in these times, and who better to look to for inspiration and leadership in Australia than the world’s oldest living culture. I wrote this poem, inspired by my many, and ongoing, chats with Richard and in my worries and also hopes about what’s to come and how we can meet it.

The Continuing Cup of Tea poem and cyanotype play

Amy Tsilemanis and Richard Collopy during the Heart Maps residency, 2023 (by Jade Forest)

Can a cup of tea save the world? Probably not, but it can make it a hell of a lot nicer.

Stay tuned my friends.

The continuing cup of tea (for Manna Gum Stories, April 2025)

let’s sit down

you and me

over a cup of tea

over grandmother’s knee

and see what we can see, see, see

because the wise woman sighs –

‘look for your own well, pet,

there’s a hard time coming’

you aint seen nothing yet

harder to find that eye to eye,

heart to heart

but we will face the day well-met,

with singing springs

and trouble nets

with flower chains around our necks

and reservoirs that won’t be spent

on tired lies and havoc bent

on morphing what we will, and won’t, accept

we’re bringing human back

walking and gardening and tea as radical acts

we mic up trees and solar caps

And rise up from the compost stacks

so listen close at mother’s ear

and tend our own and nature’s wells

so they will not be made of tears

but rather tea

a back and forward

a condiment tray of magic sauce/source

let’s sit down

you and me

and see what we

can see see see

Jul 03

Love0

The Magic Study of Objects

By Amy T Arts, Curation

Greetings from our cosy Winter loungeroom with snoring kitties, books, and Julian playing sweet guitar. As the broader world continues to be a confounding and heartbeaking place and we are all doing what we can in our own ways, I wanted to share some small joys, sent with love and thanks to all the good people making their way. Settle in for a wander/wonder.

On Tuesday it marked one year since I started my daily collecting project, now known as the Bowerbird Project, and I have now completed all 52 weeks! See week 1 and 52 here with me pottering in the collagarium/collectorium : )

This week is also two years since I first visited Northern Greece and connected with my ancestry in the region along with an international world of walking artists.

My love goes out to fellow Australian Walking Artists co-convenor Molly Wagner and all the curious folks wandering in Prespa this week for the 2025 Walking Arts Encounters and the opportunity this network provides to merge individual and collective practices towards peace and connectivity across artforms, and borders of all kinds. There are also so many wonderful things happening all around Australia with AWA artists and beyond, and as always we are listening and learning, wondering and wandering. If you’re interested in joining- check us out here and help us build this network of kind and curious creativity.

Some Bowerbird images and reflections follow here along with some related museum adventures from recent travels. So why did I start this project?

In feeling overwhelmed by the problems of the world and ‘the big picture’ I went in small, without any preconceived or grand ideas. When someone asked me the other day what my criteria was for collecting, I reflected it was basically anything that drew my attention, not too big, and no bad smells ; ) Essentially ‘No criteria’ but it evolved into a way of noticing and appreciating the everyday, and indulging my love of collage and assemblage.

I chose to send an image of the week each Sunday to a local artist friend and she had this to say:

“Amy’s collection has been a highlight each week. Seeing what someone observes and collects, versus what I have often taken for granted, walked over or not even seen, has been fascinating. I now look for treasures. It started with me thinking “Amy would love that” to now realising that I now look to seek the beauty in the everyday. I hope that this project is seen far and wide to remind us of the world we navigate.”

Thanks Lauren Mathews!

I photographed the objects weekly- again nothing fancy- accompanied by their short daily diary entry, and will see which artforms the project takes me towards next: possibly bookish, aural, sculptural, possibly participatory, so stay tuned, and for now I hope you enjoy these ponderings and pics.

Looking over the weekly photos this week, I jotted down some of the items- leaves, teabags, pills, pegs, rocks, fabric, blood, moths and pinecones; a mix of aesthetics, patterns, meanings, curiosities, records, frustrations, joys, woven through walks, threads, layers, perspectives, seasons of life, seasons of the world, navigations through…

Sometimes objects and collections related to a particular walk and these swelled a bit during recent overseas travels (the 20th edition of A & J!) I made these collages with the objects and photos from the walks- the people & places and noticings- and playing with the idea of the xray, the close inspection of the not-obviously-interesting, the little beauties. And some more of the weeks for you to explore below.

On our travels we were lucky to visit some unique museums that used everyday objects in powerful ways: The Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, Turkiye; The Red Flat Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria; the Polycentric Museum of Aigai, in Vergina, Greece; and the NSDoku- Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Germany.

The four museums allowed us to journey through 1970s Istanbul, 1980s Bulgaria, 4^th century BC Macedonia and 1920s-40s Germany. A brief summary here but deeper thoughts to follow!

I was in heaven in the writer Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, fortuitously stumbled upon by a visit to a ferry-side bookshop and fit into the last hour before we boarded the overnight train to Bulgaria! This museum revolves around an imagined life and also a novel, a fictional story meticulously brought to life through collected and displayed objects. I loved it so much, and as Pamuk discusses himself the museum explores how objects can turn time into physical space.

After being immersed in this fictional world and Pamuk’s writing on creating the book, museum and an associated film, it was interesting to experience the Red Flat Museum only a few days later, a time-capsule of life in 1980s Communist Bulgaria. The museum is located in the apartment of the family that used to live there, ‘interactive’ in that you are invited to touch the objects. I did this with both pleasure and awkwardness. Note there were no interactive smells.

Then to Northern Greece and for something completely different!- the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and its remnant palaces, tombs and the relatively new ‘Polycentric Museum.’ After the overwhelming royal riches in display case after display case- of statuary, jewellery, gold leafed crowns, and weapons in the tomb museum, I was very taken with the display of these collections of like-objects from everyday life: of keys, nails, tools, roof tiles complete with fingerprints- human and animal; the human scale. As one museum tour guide has described it “the reality of life.”

In a similar, but more personalised and heartwrenching manner, the exhibition ‘Memory Is’ at the NS Document Museum dispersed 22 items throughout the multi-level history of national socialism and its horrors.“On nsdoku‘s tenth anniversary Memory is … invites visitors to reflect collectively on our relationship to the past: How do we remember? What do we remember? And how can painful and distressing experiences be portrayed and communicated today?”

Again the personal nature of the objects was key: A plate owned by a kindergarten teacher who was later killed along with many of her pupils; a puppet made by an amazing artist, also gone too soon, obliterated by fascist rule. It was impossible not to draw the parallel to the horrors happening in Gaza as people are once again dehumanised; their humanity, property, lives and futures taken. Let’s not turn our eyes away. And always keep in mind the human scale.

And so in these times, I send my love to you. And share my noticing of the small, the tangible, the everyday, the mattering of matter? And ongoing questions around which objects are sacred, to be handled, not to be handled, and all the stories they tell. And perhaps something about how museums in different ways can make us think about creativity and existence over destruction and death, both in the past and the present. It can be hard to know what to do when such horror (and global complicity) continues to unfold daily. It’s good to remember that our resistance and our advocacy can come in many forms and that small actions and noticing have their own value and magic.

Thank you for reading! And stay tuned on the Bowerbird Project as it evolves into its next phase.

I will leave you with Joseph Cornell and Charles Simic (from Dime Store Alchemy) and the ‘smallest theatre in the world’….

PS: We also loved the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments in Athens– highly recommended! Each of the instrument/objects is accompanied by songs played with these instruments and it was amazing to be taken through so much history and culture through music. I was so happy.

Sending pockets of happiness and inspiration to you all x

Mar 29

Love0

MANNA GUM STORYTELLING FUN!

By Amy T Arts, Curation

We’ve made a website, we’ve made a book, we’ve made short films, we’ve almost made an exhibition…. ahhhh the joy!

Come and celebrate the opening of Manna Gum Stories next weekend in Apollo Bay, Gadubanud Country and until April 20th

All the info below : )

Richard and Amy with his Maari the Manna Gum painting

Julian with first look at the book he designed, looking fab!

Dec 20

Love0

A Bowerbird Year

By Amy T Arts, Curation, Walking Arts

Hello my friends,

It’s that time of year, and I’d love to share a few things to explore at your leisure!

woman colourfully dressed holding flowers and moss standing in suburban street with spring blossom on trees

Amy walking and collecting in Ballarat East, Wadawurrung Country

This year, in amongst it all, I have been continuing to help build the national collective of kindred spirits that is the Australian Walking Artists (AWA). In our first year we have nurtured an online community with a monthly newsletter and catch ups with guest artist presentations and chats, and I love running the Instagram account and seeing all the amazing things people are up to at home and abroad, and all the connections and collaborations being born. In our first year, AWA has held its first exhibition, an artist retreat, and we have our very own book awaiting publication! Explore it all here

The next step is getting legit with organisational incorporation so that we can do more things. Stay tuned. And as always, we practice deep listening and learning as artists walking on stolen land.

As our friend Geert from Walk Listen Create writes on walking art in the 21^st century:

“Today, the art of walking functions not only as a subject and practice but also as a tool for healing, fostering social change, and strengthening natural ecosystems.”

Check out the call out for next year’s Walking Art Encounters in Prespa Greece and also keep an eye out for plans hatching for a parallel happening in Australia.

In the meantime if you need to float away on waters and poetry of Northern Greece for a moment watch this we made there last year : )

My ongoing collaborative work with traditional owner Richard Collopy continues with producing the exciting Manna Gum Stories project. We’ve been working on Richard’s new website, a children’s book and digital stories that will all be launched at an exhibition in April next year at Apollo Bay Arts Inc. It is an honour to be part of bringing Gadubanud culture to the world, and advocating where I can on complex issues along the way.

photo collage with 5 images showing notebook, scenes of sand and river, plants and a hand holding a shard of rock

Walking with Richard at Aire River

In my own creative work, I have been enjoying some low key creations, no hustle to produce, that connect to walking and noticing: recording audio chats with good humans (and a failed grant app for a cool collaborative podcast that could still become something!); making terrariums, tiny glass worlds of moss, rocks, mushrooms, treasures; having fun with photo collages from my wanders in city and country, melding colours, textures, tones. The below feature walks in Melbourne, Brisbane, Apollo Bay and Ballarat.

And I am doing a fun thing loosely called The Bowerbird Project where I collect something every day for a year and record a short journal entry from which I will create a kind of 3D collage of some sort at the end. I am enjoying exploratory things without set outcomes or expectations and learning as I go.

This idea of collecting and journaling over 365 days was inspired by Chris Drury’s 2001 work Mushroom Wheel: a mixed media work featuring 365 found objects one for each day of the year and hand written diary entries in radiating lines from a central mushroom spore. (Pictured here in the book Song of the Earth).

Chris Dury work Mushroom Wheel 2001

I love seeing other variations on this idea like the wonderful Vanessa Berry (fellow AWAer) and her book coming out next year titled Calendar where Vanessa says “I focus on everyday, retro, and memory objects, a year’s worth of interesting things, and I look forward to sharing it with you next year.”

I have also loved discovering artists like Rosalie Gascoigne and her great reminder that while we gather inspiration from around us and from each other, all creative expression is unique to the point that each person is unique. With respect, we can acknowledge these things whilst creating something new, from our own singular perspectives and in our own unique forms.

“You need never dry up, you need never dwindle, because life gives you some sort of adventure, happy or sad, all the time. That is what you have to plug into, the region where you live, and what you really know is in your bone marrow.” R.G

a photo collage with 6 images including books and cat and sunlight playing over

Photo collage with Minerva and Rosalie

Happy resting, reading and keeping up the good fight for peace and humanity. Watch the awesome Nan Goldin advocate for Palestine at her recent exhibition opening here.

& to close here are some books I read this year that you might like too:

Fiction

All Fours by Miranda July

Olive by Emma Gannon

The Bell of the World by Gregory Day

A Land of Stone and Thyme, an Anthology of Palestinian Short Stories eds Nur and Abdel Wahab Elmessiri

Sunbathing by Isobel Beech

Non-Fiction

Memory in Place: Locating Colonial Histories and Commemoration eds Cameo Dalley and Ashley Barnwell

Janet Lawrence, The Pharmacy of Plants by Prudence Gibson

Song of the Earth: European Artists and the Landscape by Mel Gooding

Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Erosion, Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams

Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin

Motherlands: In Search of our Inherited Cities by Amaryllis Gacioppo

Wanderlust: a History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit

Glass after Glass by Barbara Blackman

We are the stars by Gina Chick

Things that Helped, Essays by Jessica Freidman

The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel

Position Doubtful by Kim Mahood

Comparative Monument (Ma’man Allah) by Tom Nicholson

To the Lake: a Balkan Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova

Rosalie Gascoigne by Kelly Gellatly (NGV)

Florine Stetheimer by Henry McBride (MoMA)

Fiona Hall, Force Field (MoCA)

Dime Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell by Charles Simic

See you in the new year!

Sep 02

Love0

desk things- yellow string, stones, papers

Walking Writing, Writing Walking

By Amy T Arts, Walking Arts

Spring is here, wild weather so far but gorgeous bursts of yellow springing through and I send offerings out into the world, in the form of grant applications, and various kinds of poems and collected things.

The fabulous walk · listen · create held a writing competition recently in which they asked people to submit poetry or prose for 250 words or under on the theme of “Walking Together”. You can check the longlist out here

My poem didn’t make the cut but I share it for you here with some images and hope it brings you some yellow-bathed, nector-dripping joy, whatever the weather….

To wear it is to crease it (seeking after Sappho)

To wear it is to crease it,

To release it from its holy skin

It’s seal broken, and ready to begin

Bare foot on earth,

the foot that gathers mirk amid its mirth,

Our wobbly wanderings,

that fold our longings out,

and thread our findings in,

muddy-ing and honey-ing

the golden earth

Blessings sung and sorrows wrung

at Greece’s watery borders,

And yellow flower headdresses spun

in thoughts of dancing daughters

To dance is to drip,

to weave ephemeral monuments to the moment

Footsteps of river water

and garlands of weeds and sun,

fibre and flora

Float them, muses old and young,

With nectar on our tongues

A northern Greek sunrise

Desk things and yellow strings

yellow lined paper with small plant cuttings and torn blue paper

Scores

view from above of a small terrarium with moss, rocks, and a wattle blossom

Little worlds

Jun 30

Love0

Celebrating 15 years of creative practice (and winters in Ballarat!)

By Amy T Arts

It’s a wintery restful weekend here and I am here thinking of Sappho, the Ancient Greek poet known for her lyric poetry written to be sung to music. I am writing a piece ‘seeking after’ her and remembering that it is fifteen years since we moved to Ballarat, and fifteen years since a motley crew of artists came together as Weave Length Productions for a time, and put on our first work- A Tale of Winged Things- inspired by the poetry fragments of Sappho and of the challenges of language. The promotional flyer (designed by Julian as many of the early projects were) had her words in typewriter print:

Dripping scream shook her mind until the light became a voice & spoke for the first time

The show involved cross-artform collaboration, music, poetry, books, photography, projection, archives, time, communication and playing with the traditional theatre space, things that continue to interest and inspire me. (My honours thesis was called Translating Spaces, my Masters one was Sensing Spaces, and my PhD was essentially Activating Spaces, get me those spaces!).

Soon after that collaborative production in 2009, in our mid-twenties, and following time spent living and studying overseas, Julian and I moved from a mouldy sharehouse in Brunswick, inner city Melbourne, to our own little asbestos clad home in Ballarat, regional Victoria. (This was with financial help from a parent of course, the only way any of us can get anywhere near property these days- and looking back it was somewhat against the tide, not that we were bothered). At that time everyone was saying why would you move to Ballarat?! Even we still had no concept of it, interchangeable with Bendigo and known only for gold panning visits in primary school. And it’s true that one of my early memories in B-town is ordering a peppermint tea at a café and causing a stir of consternation and confusion… my how far the Ballarat cafes have come ; )

Julian also reflects that we may have been more open to the idea having lived in a regional town outside of London (our first abode together!), taking the train into the big smoke to see shows and things, and riding bikes around the country for picnics when not working at the local pub (J) and studying books and theatre at the university (me).

On moving to Ballarat, I immersed myself in the local creative scene and followed my nose as I tend to do, producing works in old houses, train stations, streets, shop windows, and curating events and projects to bring people together around town and to bring places and stories to life in new ways. In more recent years I have also worked in the beautiful Otways and will share some more news about that soon! Perhaps in a Part 2 I will also reflect on how these years of practice have evolved into my work with the Australian Walking Artists and international creative network, an evolving wonder.

But for now- I share with you a creative project (or two) from each of the last 15 years. I would love to hear from you if you’d like to share your memories or thoughts on of any of them, any interesting threads you see, or any requests for what you’d like to see me do next! Huge thanks as ever to all those that make, enjoy and support art, the heart of life that helps us to feel, to connect, to explore and to flourish.

Feb 27

Love1

Adventures with the Australian Walking Artists

By Amy T Arts, Walking Arts

Hoping everyone is well in this wild world and sharing our kindness and creativity, and advocacy for humanity as best we can.

I turned 40 this month, so its been a big time of reflecting on how best to live and to be of service, plus of extreme gratitude for all the love and peace in my life.

As I look forward to new adventures with the newly formed network of ‘Australian Walking Artists‘ it has been fascinating to look back on my own creative wanderings, now well over a decade, and my cross art-form work and interests that have spanned site-specific theatre, creative tours, podcasting, cultural heritage, collage, poetry and more, but always with a focus on the layers and inter-weavings of people and place, and led by heart and curiosity.

To have met a kindred world on my travels in Greece last year has led to being part of AWA and our exciting group show Way Beyond at Articulate gallery in Sydney this month. A massive thanks to co-convenors of the group, exhibition curators and all round legends Molly Wagner and Kim V. Goldsmith for all their work pulling everything together. You can read their piece about the show recently shared on the awesome Walk Listen Create and if you’re in Sydney catch the show before it finishes this weekend!

and also join a talk Walk Listen Create are running tomorrow morning– 6AM Aus time- with some exciting news from our walking friends in Greece and Europe.

I consider myself more of a wanderer than any kind of hardcore ‘walker’, but the beauty of this network- and the field internationally- is it’s breadth and diversity.

Anything (so far as it’s driven by generosity, connection and curiosity) goes. Molly hosted a hybrid live and online panel chat with some of the Way Beyond artists, including me that you can watch below, woohoo!

And a poem for you written last October:

There is room for everyone

Waking with these words on my tongue,

The question mark in my gut,

Longing for it to become-

Truth

Turf toiled with love

The garden party, the cities ruined by bombs,

The bears-who know no borders-

Poisoned and re pieced

By a team of those who don’t believe in extinction

but that co-existence might still be done

Un-kin, in foreign skins, but blood within

Let there be room for everyone

All creatures under the sun,

Hold space not ground

Flowers to the butts of guns

In prayers of peace, to all not some-

Let there be room for everyone

Aug 04

Love4

Audio and walking adventures with Heart Maps

By Amy T Arts, Audio, Heart Maps

What a journey it has been as I follow my nose and my heart with this project. And now it’s time to come and enjoy one of the outcomes!

Amy in Psarades looking at the triple border in the Prespa Lakes between Greece, Albania, and North Macedonia

Amy in Psarades, Prespa Lakes, looking over the triple border between Greece, Albania, and North Macedonia, July 2023

On the final weekend of Winter (August 25-27), Apollo Bay offers up WinterWild a feast of creative and delicious delights with this unique festival and the final event will be my Heart Maps audio adventure! This is one of the places where this year’s heart mapping has led, and I would so love for you to come and explore. A massive thanks to all my collaborators and participants who have joined along the way. And to Regional Arts Australia for funding my creative research fellowship that allowed development of this work. AFTER NOTE- listen to audio and see photos from the event here!

Across the WinterWild weekend there will be a free Heart Maps story trail available to wander and listen (and for people unable to be on site these can be listened to online too), as well as this ticketed event that will take people on a magic mystery tour around town. BYO smartphone and headphones for either!

Led by me and Gadubanud artist and Traditional Owner Richard Collopy, the audio stories and experience weave together local music, culture, archival sounds, oral histories and stories of local people and places: the unique ecology; of falling in love or having first beers on the beach; the cinema and dances; first telephones, and so much more. It invites people to think about how we move through this world and how we connect with places and with each other.

Listen here

This was Jade and I walking the route last week:

Site of Miss Penn’s house, Apollo Bay

My Heart Map adventure this year has also taken me all the way to Greece! I have recently returned from travels visiting the village of my grandparents (Neret in Macedonian and Polipotamos in Greek) meaning where many rivers meet. This was incredibly moving, and while I didn’t meet any blood relations- my family having immigrated to Australia during the unrest in the 1940s- I was made to feel so welcome and feel Northern Greece in my bones.

The Artistic Station at Prespa, Walking Arts Conference 2023

The village of Neret/Polipotamos, Northern Greece

I also had the amazing opportunity to attend a creative conference in nearby region of Prespa with an international crew of Walking Arts explorers presented by the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia.

It was a completely weird and wonderful and life-changing experience that is difficult to put into words so while I continue to process the experience I defer to my lovely articulate colleagues below. I also had the honour of presenting on my Otways Heart Maps project which included a video message from Richard which was so special for people to hear. Watch here, along with me reading a poem at the start of my presentation, inspired by walks done during Heart Maps workshops in Apollo Bay. All the synchronicity of criss-crossing journeys and stories and hearts, the joy!

Walking Arts Conference Day Laimos

Cartographies panel at conference: Miguel, Anna, Amy. Natacha, Dan

Massive thanks to Walk Listen Create who got me onto this beautiful wild thing (note I’ve now entered the WinterWild walk into their yearly sound walk awards, exciting!), and an article on the conference here by Korina Farmakoris.

‘Walking meetings in Prespa’ For an active and restless part of the global artistic community, Prespa is already a point of reference, a laboratory of ideas and a place to which it wishes to return.

And some reflections from Patricia Miranda:

Amy doing Heart Maps presentation in Greece (Pic by Sia)

Until we meet again!

Much love, Amy

Mar 13

Love0

Heart Mapping in the Otways

By Amy T Arts, Audio, Curation, Heart Maps, Heritage

It’s been a while! After years of being unsuccessful with the elusive State Library of Victoria Creative Fellowship program I am happy to say that I am deep within my very own Regional Arts Australia fellowship project as we speak. It’s called Heart Maps and it’s based in the beautiful Otways on Gadubanud Country: 6 months connecting with and researching the different layers of the region through people, place and collections, and working towards the creation of a new audio theatre work, woohoo!

I am feeling so honoured to bring together a crack team- Traditional Owner Richard Collopy as cultural advisor and collaborator (see below for my story about him in The Otway Light), Apollo Bay arts legend Jade Forest, musician and producer Aimee Chapman, and the Apollo Bay Museum crew where I will be capturing oral histories, plus of course all the locals who get involved with the project.

I’m running some workshops this weekend at the cool Project Space in Apollo Bay and still have some spots left if anyone would like to join!

Book here

And learn more about the awesome work of Richard Collopy below:

The Talking Hut at Cape Otway Light Station (published in Issue 16 The Otway Light 03/06/22)

With Amy Tsilemanis

“In the aboriginal worldview, everything is living. So everything is a manifestation of some other living part. And, of course, with objects that are made, then they’re made by somebody and invested from the person who’s making it and everyone who came before, like the ancestors…So what you make, why you make it, when you make it, is all part of this ancestral cycle of life.” –Margo Neale in First Knowledges ‘Design: Building on Country.’

I arrive through the paths of coastal ti-tree at the hut, alone but for a light rain and the birds. The hut is circular, hand-made with local materials and strangely welcoming amidst its empty, abandoned air. It has no doors, no locks, artefact cases holding only labels, and covered in a layer of disuse. One case reveals a message (a plea?) written with a fingertip through the dust: ‘Please re-open the Talking Hut. We need these spaces.’ I walk past the grime covered information sheets ‘Aboriginal Ground Edge Axes,’ ‘Aboriginal Coastal Shell Middens,’ a broken chair, a fire extinguisher, a Covid sign attached to a branch with a cable tie, greenery coming in through the round, open windows sculpted out of the hut itself, a place to sit half inside half outside. I see the old information board shoved into a makeshift cupboard that states ‘The shells are fragile, the story is precious.’ Empty as the hut appears, I know that there is life here yet. Like Margo Neale’s words above, life has been transferred into the walls, the spiral roof, and the walking track outside. This Talking Hut still has more to hear, more to say.

Today I am lucky to be meeting with the artist and builder behind this special place, Richard Collopy and family. They are Traditional Custodians, and when they arrive they show me a map on the wall of Victoria’s almost forty Indigenous language groups, explaining how Victoria is language rich due to the fertile land. They point out the southern Gunditj (groups) of the Otways area, all surviving.

Gadubanud Traditional Owner Richard Collopy inside The Talking Hut. Cape Otway, 2022

We sit on the carved wooden seats around the fire pit. As we talk, the rainfall deepens. Despite the lack of a fire, there’s a sense of cosiness, of hearth, though also of something once lively, sleeping and dusted with days untouched, waiting for its moment to return. As Richard says, it is culture waiting to be reinvigorated. The hut has been closed since Covid disruptions at the Cape Otway Light Station and the Collopy’s are hopeful for a renewed relationship with the site as operations are handed over from private operators to the government body and public land manager Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (GORCAPA) next month.

Going back over a decade Richard tells me how “knowing that surrounding sites and this place were very unprotected, and with no profile for Aboriginal people, we sought a grant to put our presence here.” With their business they received a federal government grant to create a keeping place for significant cultural artefacts, the hut and a kilometre long walking track. Richard states that “supported by the Light Station business, we established a collective working group including individuals from variant indigenous families, community orgs and others. As Project Manager, this is a role I had experience in before.”

The project sought to bring together the complex threads of recognising the long history preceding European settlement, and the continuing lines of Traditional Custodians like the Gadubanud surviving, despite horrific massacres and displacement due to colonisation. There is much healing to be done, which involves truth-telling to correct historical narratives of ‘savagery’ and ‘extinction,’ and sharing the rich culture and knowledge of the world’s first peoples and their unique stories of the Cape Otway area. These were all drivers in creating the hut, and driving preservation of significant artefacts that tell these stories.

The Talking Hut on a rainy day in 2022

So how did Richard go about building the Talking Hut and what are some of the ideas and symbols within?

“Once we decided to make something here, it took about a year and a half and a bit to see what you’ve got here. All done by hand with second-hand materials, up to thirty individuals helped. I loved building it, we had all our children here, some people that we’ve now lost, they’ve all touched it.” Richard tells the story of crawling on his knees through the bush to this spot where there was nothing, and of using his unique design and building process, where existing materials are shaped and reimagined through a person’s creativity, “tactile and sculptural.”

“I walked out here into the bush, there was nothing here, and I found a bunch of rubbish. There were bits of rock, there were hundreds of bottles, plenty of ti-tree that had to be cut.” Mixed with timber from his own property nearby, the hut was lovingly constructed, large enough for meetings, and inspired by traditional techniques where:

“In some larger huts a timber pole [tree] in the centre was turned upside down so that the roots would form the structure, rocks were built up to about a metre then the timber from the top joins down and the whole lot is covered in grass or sodden, like the thatched technique, then mud and every year your shells that you burn would go on, so they’d need to be re-rendered each year for thousands of years, and that gives it the sense of permanence. The huts are permanent, the people not so much, that’s the difference.”

Standing outside in the rain and looking at the hut I ask about the Y shape at the peak of the roof. Richard tells me about this symbol, in a shape like a whale’s tail: “it features in the hut, the entrance sign and on our clapsticks and this is about people helping each other. The symbology of that today is about the two cultures working together as one. That was the essence of that.”

I thank Richard very much for sharing his story and here’s to an exciting new phase at the Cape Otway Light Station. I will leave you with some of his brother’s wise words: “Relationships are at the basis of everything, and if we can get that right, things will prosper.” Cheers to that!

Dec 20

Love0

Gather Podcast and Gather Threads

By Amy T Arts, Gather podcast, Gather Threads

We wound up Season 1 of the podcast earlier this month You can explore all 8 episodes here and we celebrated with a party featuring guests from the season and even the launch of a new creative collaboration- Gather Threads! The event was all Auslan interpreted which was awesome and all episodes are also now transcribed so please share and enjoy.

Amy & Erin chatting on stage at the Gather Party, Amy wearing her own Gather Threads piece (Image by Tiffany Titshall)

Check out more photos from the Gather Podcast Party

or watch the recording including AUSLAN and captions

and if you’ve enjoyed the podcast feel free to make a donation to go towards future work!

So what are Gather Threads?

Amy in a tree with a blue Gather Threads t-shirt on (Image: Erin McCuskey)

Amy wears a pink Gather Threads t-shirt in her garden with artichokes (Image: Erin McCuskey)

Gather Threads is a new collaboration between artist Amy Tsilemanis and seamstress Christine Crawshaw, featuring Amy’s collages printed onto fabric and sewn onto recycled clothing.

The act of combining the printed collages with the colours and fabrics of second-hand clothes and then thread, adds further layers of collage to the initial hand-cut paper artworks. It has been lots of fun! Each piece is a one-off, made with love.

You can also commission us to make your own one-off piece by selecting your chosen collage and a colour and size for your piece of clothing and we will create something special just for you!

Contact a.tsilemanis@gmail.com

Arts

Teapot Tales!

Can a cup of tea save the world? Probably not, but it can make it a hell of a lot nicer.

Stay tuned my friends.

The Magic Study of Objects

On Tuesday it marked one year since I started my daily collecting project, now known as the Bowerbird Project, and I have now completed all 52 weeks! See week 1 and 52 here with me pottering in the collagarium/collectorium : )

This week is also two years since I first visited Northern Greece and connected with my ancestry in the region along with an international world of walking artists.

Some Bowerbird images and reflections follow here along with some related museum adventures from recent travels. So why did I start this project?

I chose to send an image of the week each Sunday to a local artist friend and she had this to say:

Thanks Lauren Mathews!

I photographed the objects weekly- again nothing fancy- accompanied by their short daily diary entry, and will see which artforms the project takes me towards next: possibly bookish, aural, sculptural, possibly participatory, so stay tuned, and for now I hope you enjoy these ponderings and pics.

The four museums allowed us to journey through 1970s Istanbul, 1980s Bulgaria, 4^th century BC Macedonia and 1920s-40s Germany. A brief summary here but deeper thoughts to follow!

Thank you for reading! And stay tuned on the Bowerbird Project as it evolves into its next phase.

I will leave you with Joseph Cornell and Charles Simic (from Dime Store Alchemy) and the ‘smallest theatre in the world’….

PS: We also loved the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments in Athens– highly recommended! Each of the instrument/objects is accompanied by songs played with these instruments and it was amazing to be taken through so much history and culture through music. I was so happy.

Sending pockets of happiness and inspiration to you all x

MANNA GUM STORYTELLING FUN!

A Bowerbird Year

Walking Writing, Writing Walking

Celebrating 15 years of creative practice (and winters in Ballarat!)

Adventures with the Australian Walking Artists

Audio and walking adventures with Heart Maps

Heart Mapping in the Otways

Gather Podcast and Gather Threads

Categories

Archives

Arts

Can a cup of tea save the world? Probably not, but it can make it a hell of a lot nicer.

Stay tuned my friends.

On Tuesday it marked one year since I started my daily collecting project, now known as the Bowerbird Project, and I have now completed all 52 weeks! See week 1 and 52 here with me pottering in the collagarium/collectorium : )

This week is also two years since I first visited Northern Greece and connected with my ancestry in the region along with an international world of walking artists.

Some Bowerbird images and reflections follow here along with some related museum adventures from recent travels. So why did I start this project?

I chose to send an image of the week each Sunday to a local artist friend and she had this to say:

Thanks Lauren Mathews!

I photographed the objects weekly- again nothing fancy- accompanied by their short daily diary entry, and will see which artforms the project takes me towards next: possibly bookish, aural, sculptural, possibly participatory, so stay tuned, and for now I hope you enjoy these ponderings and pics.

The four museums allowed us to journey through 1970s Istanbul, 1980s Bulgaria, 4th century BC Macedonia and 1920s-40s Germany. A brief summary here but deeper thoughts to follow!

Thank you for reading! And stay tuned on the Bowerbird Project as it evolves into its next phase.

I will leave you with Joseph Cornell and Charles Simic (from Dime Store Alchemy) and the ‘smallest theatre in the world’….

PS: We also loved the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments in Athens– highly recommended! Each of the instrument/objects is accompanied by songs played with these instruments and it was amazing to be taken through so much history and culture through music. I was so happy.

Sending pockets of happiness and inspiration to you all x

Categories

Archives

The four museums allowed us to journey through 1970s Istanbul, 1980s Bulgaria, 4^th century BC Macedonia and 1920s-40s Germany. A brief summary here but deeper thoughts to follow!