On a greyer than usual spring evening, with fat rain drops splattering Sydney streets, the snug interior of Galerie pompom couldn’t have looked more welcoming. Sipping on wine and nibbling on sushi while taking in the gallery’s contemporary art pieces, I awaited the Bundanon Trust’s official launch of its 2017 artist residencies.
Back in 1993, Arthur Boyd, one of Australia’s leading landscape painters, dedicated his studio and properties at Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River to the arts.
I listened to Bundanon Trust CEO Deborah Ely declare that over three hundred residencies are granted at Bundanon each year, to artists and thinkers from across the globe.
‘I think it would be better if nobody owned anything, but they didn’t starve. Had enough paint and enough pianos and everything else’. – Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd’s inclusive vision of encouraging all art forms is being realized on a grand scale. Painters, novelists, composers, playwrights, sculptors, puppeteers, poets, dancers, silversmiths, performers, and countless other creatives are just some of the artists who compete each year for coveted places at Bundanon.
Post – a performance ensemble consisting of Zoe Coombs Marr, Mish Grigor and Natalie Rose – then took to the floor with their highly entertaining attempt to recreate the Bundanon atmosphere. It was complete with fake eucalyptus smells, birdsong, shots of sambuca all round, accounts of being chased by wombats, and tales of the occasional pash on the banks of the Shoalhaven.
Much of post’s material has been brought to life over multiple residencies at Bundanon. Their latest offering, described as ‘lying somewhere between drama, comedy and political commentary’, will premiere at the Sydney Festival in January. ‘Ich Nibber Dibber’ looks at what it means to be a woman and an artist. It will feature the troupe’s own secret language, developed over ten years of personal conversations.
And in the end, that’s what Bundanon is all about: finding your own language through art, in whatever medium you might be drawn to.
– Elizabeth
Elizabeth Foster is a fiction writer who locks herself up all day in her study, but lets herself out on occasion to experience all that Sydney has to offer.
Visit www.bundanon.com.au to find out more about their artists in residence.
