The Calling over Nagula
CLIENT
Project 3
LOCATION
Broome, Western Australia
YEAR
2021
COLLABORATors
Nyamba Buru Yawuru; Djugan; Shinju Matsuri; Tourism WA; Shire of Broome (Sponsors); Project 3 (Client); Broome Builders (Structure fabrication and install); Tom Vinnicombe KSCE Engineering (Engineering); Matt Champtaloup (Projector operation and set up); Sophia O’Rourke (Filming, Script and Production); Pia Boyer & Tom Forrest (film editors)
SERVICES
Landscape architecture, community engagement, art facilitation
AWARDS
AILA 2023 WA Landscape Architecture Award for Small Projects
2023 AILA National Landscape Architecture Award for Small Projects
If you listen closely during 2021’s Shinju Matsuri, you could hear the flapping of muslin on the breeze at Town Beach. White fabric hung in stark contrast to the brilliant turquoise backdrop hauled in and out by the tide. Come nightfall, dynamic colour and light projections added texture and suggestion. The stories of place billow into life over the water. This is The Calling Over Nagula (TCON) created by MudMap Studio, Michael Jalaru Torres and Jacky Cheng.
The creative strategy behind The Calling Over Nagula (TCON) was a shared belief of making sense of place through art and storytelling, while also allowing the viewer to bring their own narrative to the work. This was the creative compass of the team, allowing a multi-dimensional, non-didactic work to evolve.
Long flowing fabric ‘screens’ form the basis of the site-specific artwork. They resemble a long clothesline – a nod to the pearling camps that once existed here beside the nagula (salt water). The clothesline is one of many stories evoked by this project, which seeks to recall some of Town Beach’s dynamic, multicultural history; the Yawuru fish trapping days, the pearl lugging years, the cattle industry, the WWII Air Raid.
Whether people experience the installation in glimpses or sit for a while under the moonlight pondering it, there are many layers to it. It’s not ‘about’ any one thing, but Broome’s transient population, its environment, communities, industries, and tidal influences are all woven into the evocative piece.
This temporary work was on site for two weeks during the 51st Shinju Matsuri cultural Festival.
TCON had a small budget and footprint but a large impact, story, and grounding within the rich cultural and historical context of Broome.
Images: MudMap Studio.
