East Perth Power Station – photo by Tristan McKenzie; painting by Allan Yarran – photo by Aaron Claringbold. (Image courtesy of Perth Festival)
Australia’s longest-running arts festival returns, celebrating Perth, its people, and its culture on the shores of the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River).
Electric Fields image by Tristan McKenzie. (Image courtesy of Perth Festival)
Power Station Commission
After dark, the towering walls of the power station will unravel the history of place in monumental, projected artworks by three Noongar artists who work across disciplines, spanning generations and intersecting stories.
Allan Yarran, a senior painter of Noongar landscape, twists reality, memory and dreams into psychedelic visions of the river.
Ilona McGuire, multidisciplinary and unwavering, dissects ‘so called Australia’ through a montage of images drawn from the archives, finding new ways of expressing mob’s frustrations, hopes and depth.
Daniel Hansen is an emerging poet from Corrigin WA writing about land, kinship, plants of Noongar Boodjar and history. A new text responding to the East Perth Power Station site will be writ large across the architecture, vocalizing Daniel’s ambitions and perspectives as a proud Noongar man.
The three Artists are woven together by Associate Animation Artist and Boorloo Contemporary Creative Producer Yabini Kickett.
Each artist represents a different area of culture and expertise. Together they weave connection to place, spirit and beauty for the wider community of Boorloo to experience.
Power Station Commission is an enriching and expansive experience for all to savor. Enjoy this window into culture and through time.
Mervyn Street, Scrub Bull. (Image courtesy of Perth Festival)
Mervyn Street – Stolen Wages
Kimberley Country, its beauty and its iconic cattle musters and cowboys are brought to life in a vibrant collection of the pioneering artworks of Gooniyandi Elder and artist Mervyn Street.
With his vivid memory and natural talent for capturing movement and colour, Mervyn shares his life, Country and history of his family in paintings, drawings, carvings and animations that reveal love, struggle and triumph.
Stolen Wages features newly commissioned paintings that continue Mervyn’s legacy of telling truth to power, following his historic court victory over the State Government for decades of wages stolen from the station workers of the Kimberley.
Alice Guiness, Burndud Ground (2022) (Image courtesy of Perth Festival)
Alice Guiness – Burndud Ground
A Perth Festival and Juluwarlu Art Group Commission
Elder and senior artist Alice Guiness holds a deep connection with the Burndud, an important site and story for the Yindjibarndi people. Each stroke of the Burndud circle tells a story and it is through her special connection that Alice shares these stories with the world.
Alice’s Burndud paintings have become iconic across the Pilbara. Her use of bold colour and patterns embody the rhythms and movement of the women dancing and the men singing in Ceremony.
Now these works will be celebrated and shared with Festival audiences, brought to life in neon sculpture and immersive media installations. See, hear and feel Yindjibarndi Ngurra through vibrations of light and sound that teach the Burndud song cycle of birds, animals, plants, hills, water places, the stars and the moon.