Circular Economies Residency: Linda Tegg in Carnarvon #4

Oct 8

Linda Tegg is currently working with the community of Gwoonwardu/Carnarvon, hosted by Shire of Carnarvon. This residency is part of SPACED’s current regional residency program, SPACED 5: Circular Economies.

Tegg is exploring the presence of communication satellites in the night sky. She recently hosted a contemplative action, Situational Awareness, which invited participants to connect with tidal patterns, satellite trails, and seagrass out at Bush Bay. She was joined by local Yinggarda woman Rennee Turner (Wooramulla Journeys), who contributed her storytelling and stargazing.

From Melbourne, I’m looking at the Carnarvon tide charts and sunset and sunrise times to get the sequence right for an action I’m planning at Bush Bay. I feel organised, although I don’t really know how the turn of the tide will play out on the sand flats. I think of the pool at the Telecommunications Station. It is a concrete container sealed off from the surrounding ground, the water it held a homogenous antibiotic unit. Presumably, it now sits empty, and I imagine this relic of leisure times past as an alternate observatory - a space to draw connections, the perfect studio.

Close to obsessed, I recall photographs I’ve seen of the pool and the fence that I’ve walked past a few times. When I arrive in Carnarvon, the pool is gone – demolished and infilled a year ago. Three sides of the fence are left standing. My disappointment fades as I see that grasses and wildflowers have now drifted across the site and taken root in the gravel, carnivorous pink rainbow drosera spread out in patches, and the northern bluebells are quite sizable now.

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For the past week, David and I have been out photographing satellite trails. While the kids fall asleep in the back of the Ute, we learn fast with new gadgets that rotate counter to the Earth to register sharp stars on our camera’s sensors. Night by night, I see more in the night sky. Relationships I’ve studied from beneath the clouds amid Melbourne’s city lights, are clear - everything is in context.

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Scouting around for a camp spot at Bush Bay, I suddenly find myself sinking into a patch of decomposing seagrass. As I try to extract myself from the thick mud below, I lose balance and fall.

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Traditional Owner, Rennee Turner walks a small group of us out to the water’s edge, and she asks each of us to scrape a handful of sand. We hold it, imbuing it with our scent as she talks about the place we stand. She calls out to her ancestors and invites us to introduce ourselves. Somewhat timidly, I call ‘Gnatha Linda’ and toss the sand into the water. I wait while everyone in our little group goes through the same process. Looking down, a school of little silver fish have swum up to our feet.

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In the wind, we gather bundles of seagrass, wet them to give them weight, and stretch them out in lines along the flats. We’re recreating the satellite trails that appear in the photographs I’ve pinned to the ground. More people drift in over the afternoon. As the sun sets, we wander back to the beach for a barbecue.

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As night falls, Rennee describes what she’s seeing in the sky, the distant stars signal relationships here on earth – conditions, cycles, seasons. Her stories weave between cultural understandings. We all line up to see Saturn through her telescope. I interject with some thanks and a few facts I’ve learned about Starlink satellites from the internet. She points with a laser that’s out of this world.

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The trails we made are difficult to detect in the morning, just faint lines across the flats where the seagrass had been laid. The kids grab their fishing rods and cast into a nearby channel. All of a sudden, we’re surrounded by water; the tide has come in.

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We drive 300km south to Malgana Country to get a sense of the scale of the Wooramel seagrass bank. It’s enormous, the largest in the world, stretching from Bush Bay to Shark Bay. The 400,000 hectares of grass have contributed to a hypersaline marine environment, enabling salt-tolerant organisms to exist with little competition. A diversity of cyanobacteria, the first life to form on Earth, now flourishes in Hamelin pool, forming lumps called stromatolites.

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At 7:45 am, around a hundred people have lined the pier and beach at Monkey Mia to watch the dolphins come into shore. We gather patiently as the MC relays information about the dolphin way of life. He talks and talks while the crowd waits, but the dolphins don’t show up. I’m so impressed by this wildlife encounter - a credit to all involved.

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I visit the gallery in Dehnam to see ‘What can I say without touching the earth with my hands?’ an exhibition by artists Rebecca McCauley and Aaron Claringbold. It’s an extensive series of portraits, predominantly diptychs and triptychs of people they’ve encountered over the past year in Gathaagudu, Shark Bay. Each pairing and each grouping describes a particular intimacy between people and the various beings and places they support, live alongside and through. The artists are interested in how places and people shape each other and the responsibilities these relationships bring about.

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At 7:45 am, around seventy people line the pier and beach at Monkey Mia to watch the dolphins come into shore. A mother and her calf arrive; they swim along the shoreline. The mother keeps one eye above the water, looking at the crowd as we all take one step back.

Image captions: The pool at the OTC, photo: Rochelle O’Brien. Astrophotography, photo: David Fox. Situational Awareness sign by Stu, photo: Stu McMillan. Bundling seagrass, photo: Elizabeth Pedler. Gathering at sunset. High tide. Mother and calf. Photos courtesy of the artist.

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Image: The pool at the OTC, photo: Rochelle O’Brien. Astrophotography, photo: David Fox. Situational Awareness sign by Stu, photo: Stu McMillan. Bundling seagrass, photo: Elizabeth Pedler. Gathering at sunset. High tide. Mother and calf. Photos courtesy of the artist.

More information about the Circular Economies artists, host communities and projects as they unfold can be found by subscribing to SPACED’s monthly email newsletter, and following SPACED on Facebook and Instagram.

Learn more about Linda Tegg.

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