SPACED and PICA present Circular Economies, a series of socially engaged residencies in regional Western Australian communities over 2024–25, culminating in an exhibition at PICA in 2026.
Building on their long association, which saw SPACED present SPACED: From Space to Place at PICA in 2004, this collaboration will see seven international, national and local artists spend sustained time in five regional WA communities, supported by local arts organisations. The artists will dedicate their time in residence to socially engaged arts practice responding to local communities and contexts and the project theme of Circular Economies.
Spread across the vast state of Western Australia, from the Goldfields-Esperance region to the Mid-West and Gascoyne regions, the residencies consider WA’s relationship to the resources sector and the export of crops and livestock from rural areas to offshore locations. Local opinions on the impact of regional resource exportation on communities, cultures and the climate remain divided. However, the lack of resources in regional areas has led to the development of radical community-led solutions and sharing practices. From live exports to community gardens, renewable energy farms and seasonal workers, Circular Economies artists are encouraged to consider how communities are leading, resisting and forging new solutions to finite resources.
Circular Economies Artists and Communities
Susan Hauri-Downing & Tarsh Bates (WA)
Hosted by Beverley Station Arts, Beverley
Susan Hauri-Downing works at the intersections of social work and artistic methodologies and practices. Her art practice focuses on biocultural diversity, ecological grief and loss and interspecies relationships. Previous work explores species loss, ties to home, food security, ecological complexity and conservation practices. She also facilitates connections with individuals and groups to explore ecological and social justice issues, providing safe spaces for art as therapy and creative eco-literacy. She has 20 years of experience working with people from diverse backgrounds and her trauma-sensitive practice is dedicated to strengthening and improving the well-being of those with whom she works and the natural systems in which we live.
Tarsh Bates is formed from the exhalation of cyanobacteria and stars, a complex and diverse entanglement of Homo sapiens, Candida albicans, other microbial species, culture and technology. They forage knowledge, materials, ideas, and tools and hunt transient alliances. Tarsh Bates is formed from the exhalation of cyanobacteria and stars, a complex and diverse entanglement of Homo sapiens, Candida albicans, other microbial species, culture and technology. They forage knowledge, materials, ideas, and tools and hunt transient alliances. They are interested in the study of olfaction, focusing on volatile organic chemicals that are ingested, digested, and excreted by living, non-living, and semi-living organisms. This involves erotic inter-and intra-species communication and metabolic sense-abilities.
House of Natural Fiber (Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum & Haryo Hutomoto) (Indonesia)
Hosted by Arts Narrogin, Narrogin
The House of Natural Fiber (HONF) Foundation is a creative community of artists, DJs, physicists, hackers, architects, scientists, makers, activists, expert users and designers who test the possibilities of media art to address critical social issues through science and technology while pushing the boundaries of art and individual authorship.
M. Haryo Hutomo lives and works between Indonesia and Switzerland. Hutomo graduated from the State University of Jakarta with a Bachelor of Education in Arts Pedagogic. He has an interdisciplinary practice focusing on how art engages with the praxis of life and explores the interaction between art, science, politics and human relations in both practical and aesthetic ways.
Irene Agrivina is a technologist and activist working closely with arts, science and technology and focuses on the application and practical use in the daily life of collaborative, cross-disciplinary and technological actions responding to social, cultural and environmental challenges.
Loren Kronemeyer (TAS)
Hosted by The Cannery Art Centre, Esperance
Loren Kronemyer is an artist living and working in regional Lutruwita/Tasmania. Her works span objects, interactive and live performances, experimental media art and large-scale worldbuilding projects aimed at exploring ecological futures and survival skills. She works solo, and in collaboration with Pony Express. Kronemyer’s approach to deep and immersive research has led her to foster collaborations with several niche societies, labs and specialists. These include Australia’s last broom factory (from whom she learned to make millet brooms for the project Millennial Reaper) the World Archery Federation (from whom she earned a coaching qualification for her project After Erika Eiffel) and the scientists at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (with whom she developed her show Receiver). She received the first Master of Biological Arts Degree from SymbioticA Lab at the University of Western Australia and has a PhD from the University of Tasmania. Kronemyer currently curates experiences and parties for The Museum of Old and New Art and is the Creative Director of Art Farm Birchs Bay.
Mary Mattingly (USA)
Hosted by Shire of Carnarvon, Carnarvon
Mary Mattingly is best known for large-scale sculptures of ecosystems and imagined futures and creates photographic collages and public sculptures of imaginary futures, such as Limnal Lacrimosa in Montana; Vanishing Point in the UK; and Swale, a floating food forest in New York. Mattingly was awarded a 2023 Guggenheim fellowship. Her sculpture Ebb of a Spring Tide opened in May 2023 at Socrates Sculpture Park.
Ilona McGuire (WA)
Hosted by North Midlands Project, Carnamah
Ilona McGuire is a Bibbulmun Noongar and Kungarakan (First Nations Australian) conceptual artist. Her interests in research and exploration of historical truth-telling and honesty inform her writing, performance and visual works. Following the 2023 national referendum, Ilona has decided to detach her attention from the anguish of colonisation and refocus on a cultural identity that is not intertwined with suffering. Come 2024, McGuire is committed to creating space for celebration, yarning, healing and productivity for Mob and allies, with social practice, building community and strengthening identity.
About SPACED
The longest-running residency program in Australia, SPACED, formerly International Art Space, was established in 1998. Founded by a team of farmers and art professionals to create a new context and audience for contemporary art, SPACED invited artists to live and work in regional communities for extended periods. Its projects have engaged many of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists as well as international artists from across the world. SPACED is recognised for its unique work in creating new audiences for contemporary art and challenging artists to embed themselves in the social fabric of a regional area, creating meaningful and lasting relationships between communities and visiting artists who participate in community-led activities, creative collaborations and produce new works which contextualise local issues for global audiences. From 1998–2009 SPACED was based in the regional Wheatbelt town of Kellerberrin where it ran a gallery and residency space, with operations expanding in 2009 to embed residencies, commissions, mentorships and workshops across the state, alongside nationally touring exhibitions.
