Fremantle Biennale Promises Light and Sound Spectacular

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The Fremantle Biennale has announced programme highlights ahead of its return to Western Australia from 3 to 19 November.

This year’s Biennale, titled ‘SIGNALS’ 2023, will include over 70 events and 16 new commissions. We asked Co-founder and Artistic Director Tom Mùller what to expect.

You co-founded the Fremantle Biennale with Corine Van Hall and Pete Stone in 2017. Now approaching its fourth edition, how has it evolved?

The Fremantle Biennale continues to develop as an extended conversation between place and practice, seeking a middle ground and a complicit space for audiences to share in.

We have had the good fortune of building long-form commissioning processes into our invitations to artists, which ultimately builds a greater sense of trust and understanding. A deep understanding of the sites we work with has allowed our team to be true co-conspirators with artists and participating stakeholders.

Light and sound are central to this year’s programme, including Tomas Supple and Byron J Scullin’s audio work  The Port’s Call on the Fremantle harbour, Taloi Havini‘s sonic installation Kastoms at the Old Customs House, and NONOTAK’s light installations Satellites at the disused Elders Woolstores. Why go in that direction?

It was important for us to consider experiential works that respond directly to place and community without bringing and imposing major infrastructure to places that are already saturated. The idea of liberating or freeing place with works that gently feel into the space were a key consideration. We have invited artists who bring a sensibility and sense of care to their practices. To this end, mediums such as sound and light were favoured over more traditional approaches.

Ilona McGuire’s Moombaki drone show was a highlight of the last edition in 2021, and there will be another drone show this time around. How important was that show’s success to funding and promoting this year’s event? And how difficult are these shows to pull off safely? (Hundreds of drones threw themselves into the Yarra River in Melbourne last month prior to a Women’s World Cup football match).

Moombaki was the first iteration of First Lights and really put the Fremantle Biennale on the map. There has been resounding success around the impact this work has had and continues to have. Producing a large-scale event such as sound and drone light shows require extensive planning both around creative development with long-form consulting and site planning, including civil aviation regulations, event permits, and close collaboration with numerous government agencies. Planning up to 18 months is considered the norm and our technical team plans well in advance with extensive testing and simulations.

This year’s festival will bring Kooranup, a sequel to Moombaki, by First Nations artists Yabini Kickett, Tyrown Waigana, Ilona McGuire with Whadjuk Cultural Advisory Group. Kooranup will reveal the first stories of place across three weekends and three locations.

Luke George and Daniel Kok use shirbari (Japanese rope bondage) in their performances, which have previously included suspending Aussie Rules football players. What have they got planned for Fremantle?

A bugler is held high, still, in mid-flight by ropes. A series of calls resound, amplified across the waters to a waiting audience. This living sculpture will be created aboard the historic Rose F, a 1903 timber pearl lugger, both on voyage and whilst docked at the harbour. The process for creating this suspended tableau will be filmed and live-streamed back to shore, with the vessel reaching audiences for the final performance.  —[O]

Main image: NONOTAK, DAYDREAM V.4 (2014). Audiovisual installation. Courtesy the artists and Fremantle Biennale.