Fremantle Arts Centre is a hub of creative and cultural activity, it is a place for artists, musicians, writers, thinkers, and curators to share their art with the world. In doing so, they share their reflections, dreams, hopes, ambitions, and concerns with our audiences and start important conversations in our community.

The site on which Fremantle Arts Centre sits has an ancient and recent history, the Boodja or Country below has been witness to incredible change over time. Fremantle Arts Centre is committed to exploring the complexities of the site through varying modes of creative enquiry and truth telling and recently the City of Fremantle acquired a significant work by Badimia and Yued artist Amanda Bell, which is now on permanent display in our courtyard.

Amanda Bell

Born 1965, Whadjuk Country, Western Australia

Badimia (Yamatji) and Yued (Nyoongar) Peoples, Western Australia

From our lip, mouths, throats and belly, 2021
neon glass, audio
158 x 300 x 6 cm
Edition 3 of 3
Courtesy of City of Fremantle Public Art Collection

Amanda Bell, From our lip, mouths, throats and belly, 2021, neon audio, 158 x 300 x 6 cm

 

Amanda is a Badimia (Yamatji) and Yued (Nyoongar) woman, born on Whadjuk Country, who lives and works on Wardandi Country, by the sea. Amanda has a diverse creative repertoire and works with sculptural materials, video, sound, textiles, found objects, and most recently neon glass lighting. Her works are ambitious and experimental, and with them she aims to “try new ways of telling stories that are sometimes uncomfortable and painful, sometimes fun and frivolous.

In this new work From our mouths, lips, throats and belly, the artist had a vision of a beautiful Nyoongar word “as old as Boodja and as new as now, shining for all to see. Fragile, beautiful and strong. I honour this word, this Country and our people. Moorditj! (Good).”

Pause for a moment and listen to our ancient Nyoongar language as it is spoken in the same way it has been for thousands of years.

The artist wishes to acknowledge:

Auntie Gloria Hill, Wadandi Elder and Aunty Lola Garlett,
Cultural advisors and Storytelling
George Aitken, Neon fabrication
Peter Jago, Technical design
Lincoln MacKinnon, Sound design

Recorded in Andalup (Busselton), on Wardandi Country. This work was made with support from the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries