Circular Economies Residency: Sue Hauri Downing and Tarsh Bates in Beverley #1

Nov 5

SPACED Circular Economies artists Sue Hauri Downing and Tarsh Bates write about their first two weeks on residency in Beverley with Beverly Station Arts.

Eremophila

The first smell of the main street in Beverley arrives before I step onto the pavement and criss-cross along the main street where cars have right of way to pedestrians. It carries the unmistakable scent of a place where everyone knows each other, where anonymity doesn’t quite exist.

Beneath the warmth of the footpath and eclectic shopfronts lies a mix of tension and tenderness: small town politics softened by familiar greetings, by the gentle rhythm of shared days. Words eavesdropped while queuing to enter the bakery about dams not filled, water scarcity spoken of with resignation and a matter of fact “see you next time.”

Somewhere close later in the evening, frogs claim their damp corners and birds weave through the dry air, a reminder that this land was and still is home before habitat. The scent of Eremophila drifts from the paths, earthy, medicinal, resilient.

Veldt grass

Peter tells me that housing affordability is one of the reasons people settle in Beverley. He has spent years working in regeneration, first in England then over east. He carries that quiet steadiness / humility of someone who prefers doing to talking. At Brooking Street Reserve, I watch him weeding, mending, noticing.

He calls veldt grass “a highly successful coloniser,” and I think … just like me and my people. It drinks deeply, stealing moisture from the roots of others. It spreads fast, changing what grows, what survives. Fire loves it. So does wind. I think about Peter’s words and feel the contradiction rise: I’m veldt grass … I’m allergic to me … Lucky I took an antihistamine. This reserve, once a sand quarry, is now a site of repair, fragile, ongoing, imperfect.

Lichens metabolise on fallen tree branches around the weeding site. Sheoks dominate, slender and scrubby. Orchids bring tourists. Conversations turn towards responsibility. Peter tells about his long-term visions, with different zones and plans for repair.

Peter introduces me to Phyllis, who knows the place intimately. She photographs the plants that cling to this shifting ground. She wants to make an archive of what’s here to preserve what might be lost. Between her and Peter and others on the team solutions form. Phyllis speaks of her desire for more Noongar knowledge, ways of tending and understanding Country that are older, wiser, already here.

I offer to lend them our trail camera and Phyllis invites us on a tour of paths through nearby reserves and other places shaped by the same quiet tension: growth, control and arts of repair.

Avon River / Colguler (Ballardong Noongar)

Rodney spends his days at the Community Resource Centre / Library, surrounded by papers, stories and time. He carries the town’s memory like an audio book, each detail alive as he speaks.

He tells me about the smell of turtles that lived in the Avon River, remembered from his childhood: the turtle shells green with algae. He also remembers fields of beautiful smelling everlasting daisies, and smoke from the early trains whose hot embers leapt into trees and sent bushfires trailing outwards from the tracks. The air then smelt of movement, of trains, of trade, of the burn and work that re-shaped the land. Circular economies held the town together: people reusing, repairing, sharing. As extractive industries grew, those circles stretched, thinned, and ruptured with the rhythm of the railway.

Enamel paint and salted water

Marylou, Jenny and Bec welcome us to the former train station house, built in 1886, now the home of Beverley Station Arts and the Shire of Beverley art collection. The station has been renovated and is the pride of Beverley, an example to Brookton and other small towns on the line. Corrugated iron and ply surround the old platform structure: a new gallery is being built.

Worn and warped jarrah floorboards creak as we limp up and down the stairs. The lack of smell is notable except in the bathroom, which makes our noses twitch from mould.

We unwrap the alembic still for the first clean. The hammered, curved and riveted copper sheets glow, seemingly fresh from the mine. We clean with rye flour and vinegar, steaming and frothing.

Sue feels the train vibration first. It wakes her up. Five minutes later, she hears the horn. Two metres from her window, the train rumbles past the station, shifting grain from farm to…? The station is a ghost on the line.

We sit in the open gallery and explain our project to bemused locals, both old and new, smelling of diesel, dirt, roses, wheat and sheep, and tourists – grey nomads passing through town on their way to York, Brookton, Northam in a whiff of road and dust. “We are archivists,” we say, “of the smells of disappearing and lost spaces. Tell us about your smellscapes. Let us preserve them.” We learn of grass from Indiana, coffee from Melbourne, beaches, wildflowers, orange blossom, and Eucalypt. Sheep, wheat and diesel are common. Less common are whiteboard marker, beef dog treats and dryer sheets.

Rob paints the old station doors leading to the new platform gallery. Enamel paint permeates, suffuses the station house.

We escape through the wheat fields to Yenening Lakes, chuckling at mules and the idea of a water ski club here. Orange lichen are luminous in the trees and salt hangs on the breeze.

Images courtesy of the artists.

More about Sue and Tarsh.

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Circular Economies is produced as a joint partnership by PICA - Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and SPACED.