Wynyard to Milabena: Acoustic Life of Sheds

Electric jug and shears. Pic: Chris Gosfield

Lucky Oceans. Pic: Chris Gosfield

Shearing shed boat. Pic: Chris Gosfield

Acoustic Life of Sheds

Stunning landscapes, brilliant musicianship, incredible sheds and new rural narratives.

The nature of rural life has seen dramatic change. People relocate, knowledge is dispersed, culture changes and ritual is lost.

New technologies, the globalisation of commodity markets and the removal of protective tariffs, have contributed to a steady restructuring of the agricultural industry. Larger farms have become more economically viable than small farms, bringing pressure to sell and merge properties. Questions around food security are raised, in the context of climate change and precarious global economies.

Acoustic Life of Sheds brings together farming families and composers, musicians, sound designers and visual artists to explore the stories and aesthetics of sheds and how personal rural stories illustrate these larger global narratives.

Big hART in association with Ten Days presents a free event across 5 locations in Tasmania, from Wynyard to Milabena via Table Cape and Boat Harbour.

Saturday and Sunday March 21st-22nd and 28th-29th, as part of the Tasmanian International Arts Festival.

Audiences are invited on a pilgrimage through the natural cathedral of Tasmania’s North West Coast to experience the world premiere of new works by award-winning composers, presented in the locations that inspired them. Across five rural properties in north-west Tasmania, sheds will be turned into performance venues, sites for installation and sound art, providing a radical, new context for the creation and presentation of contemporary Australian art music.

Featured Artists include: Genevieve Lacey, Lucky Oceans, Nick Haywood, Marshall McGuire, Phil Slater, Damian Barbeler, Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey.

Over 2 weekends in the Tasmanian international Arts Festival, performances take place twice daily. Audiences experience the 5 pieces as a concert with 10 to 20 minute driving intermissions through spectacular rural landscapes. Overall driving and travel time will take 4.5 hours.

Big hART projects realign the relationships between people and art, people and places, creating new ways, habits, and experiences for both artists and audiences. Acoustic Life of Sheds also creates relationships with local communities, with people who are not traditional arts consumers, giving new music new audiences, new opportunities to be heard, and understood.

Our newly launched project website: http://acousticlifeofsheds.bighart.org
Yolande Norris Media and online producer