MJ Callaghan, Australian composer and sound artist, and I are collaborating on the final component of The Self Reconciliation Project.
Over the course of the project storytelling has become a focus and I’ve been exploring the use of different media to tell the story. My ambition for the collaboration is for it to be experimental, collaborative and work with new ideas and platforms to bring writing, poetry, and research together with music, landscape sounds, and interviews to create a soundscape/spoken-word production. It’s a new direction.
We are spending two weeks dedicated face to face time in his recording studio in February/March 2025. Our process is to share material, explore and experiment with ideas, and create content, focusing on experimental forms of sound and oral storytelling. The aim is to forge creative bonds and allow space for the flow of ideas and experimentation.
Background
The thread of The Self Reconciliation Project emerged in 2019 from a series of works titled Self Reconciliation which I made for a group exhibition in Sydney. Researching 100 years of my family’s history and our access to land in Australia I started with a time-line beginning with migration from Scotland to Quairading and finishing with the birth of my mother. The family was one of the first settler families to arrive in Quairading in the wheat belt of Western Australia.
I began my research in earnest during my five-month research residency at the Fremantle Art Centre (2022). I focused on the notion of self reconciliation by researching my family’s settler history (an internal lens), in relation to politics, racial issues, community attitudes and the laws of the time.
During a two-month residency in Alice Springs (the spiritual and physical heart of Australia,) in 2023, I continued to explore the notion of self reconciliation by investigating connection to ‘place’ through the Australian landscape (an external lens).
The collaboration with MJ Callaghan is the final component to the project. New work inspired by the residencies and collaboration will be created and presented in an exhibition at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery.
My practice-led research paper focusing on the residencies in Fremantle and Mpartwe/Alice Springs, the collaboration with MJ Callaghan, and the processes involved in creating new work for the exhibition will be presented at The Australian Ceramics Triennale, WEDGE in October 2025.
About MJ Callaghan
MJ Callaghan is an Australian musician and sound designer. His latest album is the film score for the film RIDE, produced by American studio Margate House Films.
He has composed, performed and produced three instrumental art rock albums, Those Who Ride With Giants, Numinous and Forlorn. His score, The Tired Road to Hope and Peace, was featured in the 2020 American film, No Man’s Land. His experience includes animation, video production and audio editing; and he has written, illustrated, and produced a children’s book.
Further reading about The Self Reconciliation Project:
AiR, Fremantle Art Centre (February to June 2022)
AiR, Central Craft, Alice Springs (May to June 2023)
Comments