“Where you came from is gone, where you thought you were going to weren’t never there, and where you are ain’t no good unless you can get away from it.”
[from ‘70’s feature film Wise Blood by John Huston, and Psalm 69, by Ministry]
That quote may resonate with some raised in Burnie, including writer, musician, performer, and author of a striking new non-fiction book, Dream Burnie, Justin Heazlewood. In 330 colourful pages, Dream Burnie celebrates artists and the art spirit of the north-west coast.
Darren Hanlon sums up Heazlewood’s latest project.
“With a forensic nostalgia and school-project energy, Justin Heazlewood returns to the town that shaped him.”
Image courtesy Tara Palmer.
As we hit our teens, some of us can’t wait to leave our hometown. Some who stay envy the runners. Some who leave, return to find that both nothing and everything has changed. Some runners, perhaps wisely, never return to a place they sense is now long gone. Heazlewood came back.
Dream Burnie is a sometimes excoriating exploration of why those who struggled to be creative in the place that formed them, stayed or fled
By many accounts, Burnie rates as a shit town – both when unfettered industry ruled and deadly pollution fouled the environment, and now, when indifferent corporate grifters and councillors seem to have abandoned any interest in what culture is or means to a healthy community.
Heazlewood uses the Dream Burnie project to check in with other creatives from his hometown. In what sometimes seems like a group therapy session, he has conversations with many now well known Burnie artists to compare notes and scars. And everyone, it seems, is at least a little scarred by their hometown.
There are many positives though, and a common factor in the stories in Dream Burnie are of memorable teachers, who saw young creatives for who they were – and encouraged them to go forth and risk failure in the pursuit of their passions.
Another commonality is the cultural cringe. We effortlessly celebrate those who achieve in sports, while subjecting creatives to derision or indifference. The near-complete lack of opportunities here, plus the grinding self-promotion and brutal introspection required by artists and writers, don’t rate against kicking a ball. Heazlewood’s blunt: if you have a creative career “self-care and preserving your mental health are the first things to go”. As for the town itself…
Burnie is “like Summer Bay meets Guantanamo Bay.”
Some don’t make it out alive. The lesson for young creatives seems simple – run.
And so they leave for Melbourne, London, New York – any place they might learn, practice their work, and maybe make a living from the combination of gruelling hard work, hand-to-mouth poverty and talent. It’s a “macabre ‘survival of the fittest’ course to see who will break first. Alone Australia with pencils and paint.”
In contrast are Dream Burnie’s expressions of care and love for the town. The palawa peoples saw the area as a richly abundant source of rich soils and a confluence of waters, salt and fresh. For that reason it was a celebrated meeting place for trade and other cultural activities, and which is why European colonisers stole it. The trickle-down of history is a dogged non-indigenous refusal to acknowledge a history so brutal it’s a challenge to face the blood-drenched culture of the colonists. Run.
Another commonality in the stories is a routine teenage fear of Burnie’s endemic car culture, bullying and nihilistic ennui; you needed to be either quick on your feet, ready with your fists or possess a sharp and witty tongue. The would-be writers and stand-up comedians stood a chance; gentle and neuro-divergent artists and musicians often didn’t do so well.
“There isn’t a single Burnie bloke who doesn’t harbour muscle memory of being teased, abused, threatened, chased or worse by the bad apples and apex thugs of the unsupervised suburbs,” says Heazlewood. Run!
For all that, there is a rich vein of affection for the area from most Burnie artists. Heazelwood is adamant.
“Burnie cares. It cares a lot. Just keep believing!” Telen Rodwell is equivocal: “There’s a toxic Burnie and there’s a divine Burnie.” Josh Earl is pragmatic: “You know when guests are coming to your house, and you make the house spotless and you tidy every room, but there’s always that one room that you just dump all your shit in there and close the door. That’s Burnie.”
Justin Heazlewood’s funny, heart-felt and beautifully designed and illustrated book Dream Burnie is for anyone born or raised in Burnie (or any small town), and every young creative thinking of risking their all.
“You can’t sit back and wait for anything in life. You can’t wait for the phone to ring. You can’t wait for someone to understand your genius and want to work with you.
You basically just have to wake up every day and figure out how you’re going to make opportunities happen – almost out of thin air.”
Gutsy stuff.
Dream Burnie, by Justin Heazlewood, released February 2025, RRP $34.95, 338pp, ISBN: 978-0-646-88479-0
B.P. Marshall is a scriptwriter and author.
