Remote Origins

Operations Director: Madelynne Cornish

Artistic Director: Philip Samartzis

Design + Development: Public Office

PO Box 456, Mount Beauty, 3699,
Victoria, Australia

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

ISBN 0-646-36226-7. Published 1998

Sounds of Weather

04—04.12.2011

Artists

Ephemera

Publication

Supporters: Musashino Art University, JP; RMIT School of Art, AU; RMIT Project Space/Spare Room, AU; RMIT Foundation, AU

The Sounds of Weather is a cross-cultural art and research project comprising students and researchers from Musashino Art University in Tokyo and the School of Art at RMIT investigating the experience and behaviour of weather through sound, video and performance. The project has included site visits to the Sumida River, Tokyo Bay, Saitama Underground Discharge Facility and the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme in the Australian Alpine Region. Exhibitions and performances have occurred at various venues in Tokyo and Melbourne including Superdeluxe, West Space Gallery, RMIT Project Space/Spare Room and Konnoh Hachimangu Shrine. Notable sound and performance artists including Haco, Jou Odoru, Minoru Sato, Toshiya Tsunoda and Kudo Taketeru made additional contributions to the project.

Weather is a universal phenomenon that shapes our perception of ourselves, and the places that we inhabit. The opaqueness of winter, the luminosity of spring, the humidity of summer, and the briskness of autumn indelibly shape our emotions. Our physical interaction with the weather is equally complex. We dress for particular conditions, we control the temperature of the spaces that we inhabit, and we obsess over weather forecasts. Weather is so common and change so often gradual that it can sometimes be taken for granted unless an unusual weather event occurs to excite our attention. Regardless of what the weather forecast may hold, it will forever exert a powerful influence on the conditions that we experience within the natural and constructed world.

The works produced during The Sounds of Weather provide a broad survey of how artists have attempted to capture the influence of weather within a diverse set of locations that span the metropolitan areas of Melbourne and Tokyo, and the rugged terrain of the Australian Alps. The intention of the project is to investigate the spaces, conditions, technologies, and language used to harness weather in order to activate awareness of how it shapes daily life. The artists who have contributed towards The Sounds of Weather have provided a divergent set of responses as variable and dynamic as any meteorological event influencing the site in which you inhabit at this very moment.