A creative residency at Monmar

EPA engaged in a creative residency at Monmar for two weeks and 3 weekends!. - from the 13th to the 29th of September.
We were supported by the Mornington Peninsula Shire - Performing Arts Development grant and stayed at the Police Points artist cottages supported by Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

Residency Showing

We put together a 'showing' that was steeped in the experiences we had over our time on our residency. Participants were taken on a walking experience that delved into many aspects of the place, its histories, weathers, atmospheres and ecologies.
Photos: Laki Sideris
For our residency Environmental Performance Authority engaged deeply with the place to develop a walking experience through Monmar, Our aim was to expand our process of investigating the cultural and social history whilst experiencing the natural environment through site-specific performance and sensory activities. As participants are guided along, they encounter complex geologies, ecologies and built histories. Walking with our participants and invited guest experts, allowing for cross conversations, weaving and distilling ideas and reflections between locals, visitors, citizen scientists, scientists, and artists.
EPA follow trails with sensitivity, attending to Monmar’s fragile and significant ecologies. Facilitating participants to engage in sensory tasks such as feeling for different textures of plants, listening to the sounds near and far, these tasks will build upon one another to create a deeply immersive experience in time and place, sensorially, imaginatively, and intellectually.  
 

Audience quotes:

  • I’d say I relaxed when we started drawing. Before that, I felt heightened—not in a bad way, just alert.
  • Yes, it was very organic. It didn’t feel forced. That’s what gave me the sense of peace, despite all the dark information you gave us about the deaths and the tragic history. It was still peaceful, with the silence and nature that you can touch and connect with. The intertwining of these two themes gave me a sense of peace.
  • The space was really expansive, especially when you entered it with that childlike abandon. You left us there, literally abandoned, and people just started enjoying the beach. The performance became peripheral as everyone played in their own way.
  • Your performance is definitely more participatory. Tour guides just talk at you, but you engage us in different ways.
  • Yeah, that text about the burial station and the slaughterhouse really stuck with me. That’s the main difference between this and a guided tour. You’re guiding us to have sensory and emotional responses, not just giving us facts about who died where.
  •  I had a sense of peace, but it wasn’t relaxation because you kept me engaged the whole time, with my attention and intrigue. It was my first time seeing the place and perceiving it through all these means—there was so much dramatic contrast between the performance elements, like the skeleton, which was pure theater, and then the ocean, which was also pure theater. It was a beautiful combination of elements that connected us to the place, the space, and the energy. Thank you.
  • I liked how the performance encouraged reflection and exploration. There’s so much to develop for the next phase—there’s just so much here at Point Nepean.

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The day before

Photos: Amanada Stuart
Monmar is a highly significant cultural site to the Bunurong people, as both a birthing site and women’s place, and the site of abduction of women by colonial sealers, which contributed to diminishing the Bunurong population (Statement by Bunurong Land Council). It is still a treasured place. Environmental Performance Authority would work with the sensitivity of this cultural heritage through collaboration with local Indigenous groups.
 
As well as being a significant site to the Bunurong people, Monmar abounds (much more visibly) in recent colonial history with its many remaining forts, tunnels, buildings and monuments recalling the defence and quarantine stories of early settlement. It is a stunning coastal environment with views of the Rip and Port Phillip Heads out to Bass Strait, and surrounded by the diverse marine flora and fauna of Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park. These rich layers of place offer endless material for site-responsive artists. ​
 Photos: Bronwen Kamasz

Thylacine spotted!

Photos: Amanda Stuart

Events: 

Welcome to Country

Adam Magennis from Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation (BLCAC) generously shared his culture, memories and a very special Welcome to Country.
Photos: Amanda Stuart

Gidja Walker: Ecologist

Gidja Walker guided us (and public participants) on an ecological walk through the landscape at Police point. We did not walk far - we walked deep. Gidja's knowledge and rich understanding of the geology, the plants and wildlife of this place tuned our senses to a miniature wonderland beneath our feet, and into the expanse.
Photos: Amanada Stuart

Playful experiments in place

Video: Bronwen Kamasz
Video: Bronwen Kamasz x Google Earth
"We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the lands and waters of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. We recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people are the Traditional Custodians of the lands and their continuing connection to the land and waters surrounding us. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
 We acknowledge that generations of First Nations people have danced, performed and told story here for over sixty thousand years and these rich customs and traditions continue in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island culture today."