Circular Economies Residency: Sue Hauri-Downing and Tarsh Bates in Beverley #2

Nov 20

SPACED Circular Economies artists Susan Hauri-Downing and Tarsh Bates share reflections about their research on residency in Beverley with Beverly Station Arts.

Petrichor

We have been told that it has been a wet winter and spring. The wildflowers and orchids have been particularly prolific. The humidity makes the sky and clouds heavy and breathing is harder. Scents stick to the plants and ground. Flies stick to us. We cancel a trip to Bec’s special places because of the storm warning. Two hours later, thunder, lightning, rain and hail charge the sky. We revel in the glorious smell of petrichor saturated with plant oils, soil microbes and ozone.

The crops are drying for harvest, and more rain will cause trouble.

Shit

Under the old bridge on the top road, the Avon is full from the rain. The sheoaks shiver in the breeze. Someone has decorated the bridge bolts with beer bottle tops and had a shit on the sand. The familiar stench is so different from the desiccated kangaroo, sheep, rabbit, dog and echidna shit I have been scavenging during our forages but reminds me how vital excrement is for healthy places.

Ozone

Bec takes us up to Poison Hill where she walks her dog and shows us a Eucalypt stuck by lightning in the recent storm. Its bark litters the ground, forced off by the lightning. Its skin is raw and glistens gun-metal silver. It is soft to touch and smells of ozone. The Balga resin shines deep red and the burnt and naked trunks smell of smoke and flames.

Lavender and Rose

I pick some lavender as I walk out through the BSA gates, its stems furry and fragrant between my fingers. Rob, the contractor working on the new gallery section, stops to chat. I tell him my dad isn’t doing well and that I need to head to Perth. He tells me to drive safely.

As I drive, the scent of lavender fills the car, warming with the engine. The timing feels right. My dad is ready to die.

All my life, we’ve shared a love of fragrance and flora. I think I inherited my sense of smell from him. As a child, I remember making little lavender pouches from his handkerchiefs, tying them with ribbons for him to slip into his pocket or under his pillow. We would walk together, stopping often so he could show me the scent of something new, a plant or flower.

In Beverley, I find myself doing the same thing, wandering, guided by my nose more than my eyes, as I familiarise myself with the place through scent. I know Beverly will smell so differently when we return for the second residency.

My earliest memories of Dad’s stories were about the African game reserves where he conducted his research. I wonder if his mind is travelling back there now. These places triggered my first scent memories, far from lavender, the resilient Mediterranean plant now thriving in Beverley’s front gardens.

When I reach him, I hold the lavender to his nose. His mouth agape, his breath shallow, laboured. But his eyebrow lifts, a small acknowledgement. I stand by him, lavender in one hand, and play his favourite music from my phone.

Outside the room, the air smells of air conditioning and disinfectant, notes of deodoriser, food, carpet cleaner, and the faint edge of faecal matter.

As I leave the nursing home, I see the long bed of roses out front. Last year, when he could still go outside in his wheelchair, I’d tried to wheel him close enough to smell them, but we never quite managed. Roses are everywhere in Beverley. The town’s annual rose show was in our second week of residency.

It’s day two of my dad's active dying. I bring him a sweet smelling rose, its petals large and soft. I hold it to his face; a few petals rest gently against his dry lips. I lift it back to my nose and inhale, the rose now carries the scent of his breath, the trace of metabolic change that comes with dying.

Another resident, Rosa, arrives with a teacup full of Eremophila and roses. I fan the scent toward him, as she lays a hand on his chest, and prays softly. She wanted to bring food or something from the shops, but I told her offering of prayers and the scent of one of his favourite flowers is perfect.

He taught me to prune roses when I was twelve. That knowledge is everywhere here in Beverley roses thriving in gardens, churchyards, and along dusty red soil roads.

Over the hours, his breathing slows, then quickens again, like a metronome losing tempo. His skin shifts through shades of pink: blushed, light, dusky, pale… until finally, lavender.

LPG

We set up the still in the lee of stark white trunks on the edge of one of the Yenyening salt lakes for our first field distillation. As Sue forages, I collect lake water for the still and condenser and hook up the gas. We pack the still, pour water and ice into the condenser and light the burner. We sit at the edge of the brown water under the vast blue sky, watching birds and clouds, listening to the wind and lapping water, the grit of the sand between our fingers. We wait for the water in the pot to boil, the energy from the gas transforming the liquid into steam. The water vapour rises through the botanicals in the column, warming and dissolving the plant oils and odorants. The chemical-laden vapour flows through the minaret dome, down through the swan neck and hits the ice water in the condenser, transforming again, from vapour to fragrant liquid. The clouds have moved. Bull ants bite. The planet turns away from the sun.

Images courtesy of the artists, except where indicated.

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.