since 2007 residents of gloucester share a collective somatic response to prolongued rain that in my own memory only accounts for summer of 84 when my family went camping in west ireland at the tail end of hurricane charlie. our campsite turned to mud overnight - my only 9yr old task to keep my younger brother clean while mum decanted the family sleeper. his hand slipped from mine and neck deep in puddle resulted in the harsh fine of an icecream ban for the rest of the day.
bigemia homestead's (western australia) eastern boundary is marked by freshly dug rusty tractors - exhumed through drainage, their awkward limbs now collect in twisted relief on the horizon. to the west, the old shearer's shed lies upturned over a solid remaining bread oven. too large to sink and too stubborn to fold into subsidiary parts. spare tractor limbs, a heifer's pubic bone, wide branches straddle eucalyptus trunks, ratcheting in cross stitch from fence pillar to post.
how might a cultural ecological framework manage these emergent properties? the dialogue is generated through small exchange - a shared will to return to former glory - to re-place stolen goods, to readjust the quotidian topography (most precious goods maintain an altitude of 2m plus). how might the tacit and the phenomenological invert a constitutive human vulnerability in sustaining diurnal activity?
rain as signifier.
place writing then becomes an ethical act.
(writing and stitching, Marnie Orr)
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