The Bogong Centre for Sound Culture is a remote-regional cultural initiative situated in the foothills of Victoria’s Alpine National Park. Established by Philip Samartzis and Madelynne Cornish the Centre supports projects focusing on the processes and impacts of sustainable energy production; effects of climate change in wilderness areas; ethnographic studies of remote communities; the chronicling of vanishing industrial procedures; and systems of representation used to render natural and built environments.
Additionally, the BCSC facilitates a broad cultural program comprising, festivals, exhibitions, publications, master classes and artists’ talks focusing on site-specific art practices. These programs establish a connection with place, its inhabitants, geographic space and memory. They engage a wide range of audiences, bringing together local, interstate and international artists across multiple disciplines and fields to realise ambitious works.
The BCSC is situated at the newly restored old school at Bogong Alpine Village located 350 kilometres from Melbourne in North East Victoria.
About Bogong Village
Bogong Alpine Village is 325 kilometres North-East of Melbourne situated at an altitude of 800 meters in the Alpine National Park between Mount Beauty and Falls Creek. The village was established in the late 1930s to service the first hydroelectric scheme in mainland Australia. More recently it has become a popular site for alpine sports, recreation and ecotourism. Click here for directions.
A Short History
Work on the Kiewa Scheme commenced in 1938 with the construction of a road from Tawonga to the High Plains. Previously the only access was by foot or horseback along tracks that had been forged by cattlemen of a bygone era. Bogong Village was established once the road from Junction Camp was trafficable (March 1939); this paved the way for the construction of permanent buildings. Prior to that life was tough; large canvas tents and flies were used for sleeping quarters and smaller tents were set up to house the kitchens. By 1940 Bogong Township had grown considerably with a general store, staff offices, recreational mess, police station, and a variety of accommodation such as single men’s quarters and residences for married staff and families.
Bogong State School
In 1941 the Primary School at Bogong Village enrolled its first intake of students comprising nine pupils. Initially the school consisted of a large classroom, storeroom and boys and girls toilets. Extensions were carried out in 1944, which expanded the capabilities of the school. A library, storeroom, pupil’s lunchroom and shelter shed were added and rock gardens were established. By 1947 the number of students had grown to 46 all of whom were children of local SEC workers. Over the years class sizes fluctuated and the building remained unchanged. In 1980 it ceased to operate as a school and sat idle, eventually falling into disrepair. In 2004 it was sold along with many other buildings in the village.
Madelynne Cornish and Philip Samartzis bought the Old School and set about restoring it to its former glory. The rotting weatherboards and floorboards, smashed windows and flaking paint are now a distant memory. The newly refurbished building occupies it’s original footprint and bares a strong resemblance to it’s former self. Although the internals have been modernized remnants of it’s past history remain. The Old School once played a significant role in the fabric of village life. It inspired the community and helped shape the minds of those who studied there. It is our intention as custodians that the School once again functions as a place of inspiration.
Reference: Kiewa Kids School Days at Bogong & Mount Beauty by Graham Gardner
Exploring the rivers around Bogong Village I’ve been paying attention to the stones, especially some of the enormous boulders. Their weight draws attention to them, a gravitation-like summoning in the landscape. Within the linear structure of the river, they pull attention one after the other, shifting for viewing at multiple angles as they reveal themselves in changing light and weather. Glistening like the supple pelts of seals in rain and with a soft grey skin interspersed with haphazard lichens in the afternoon sunlight. The shadows of harsh full sun shift their appearance again, cracks and overhangs are sharp and their forms harden. At night they are great dark forms, silent above the tumbling chatter of the water.
Some of Isamu Noguchi’s monolithic works in stone have a similar quality, incorporating the stillness and charisma of large stones and the compositional possibilities they offer in a landscape. As focal points to shape perception the boulders seem to hold themselves more tightly than the fast-flowing water running around them or the foliage which moves with the currents of air.
Researchers Charle M. Shobe and Rachel C. Glade have shown that the larger boulders have a relationship-to the depth of rivers relative to the surrounding landscape. Over geological time scales their hardness adds to the pressures wearing down into the softer bedrock and shifting the course of water around them, leading to the steep sides of many river canyons with very large boulders. Over very long timescales they will continue this process. Virginia Woolf wrote “the very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare”, but these great inscrutable objects will continue on a longer timescale, they will eventually erode down into smaller stones, and then pebbles but the timescale of their existence is hard to fathom.
