COLLINGWOOD CHILDREN’S FARM - WINTER SOLSTICE BONFIRE
Each year for over 30 years there has been a very huge bonfire to mark Winter Solstice at the Farm. This annual celebration of the passing seasons was initiated by a group of people who were squatting at the Abbotsford Convent. And therein lies a story. In 1975 the Catholic church sold the property to the state government and La Trobe University took over its management and the Farm was divided from the main site. Then in 1997 a property developer won a tender to demolish many heritage buildings and develop the site for private accommodation. Horrified, a group of people started squatting at the Abbotsford Convent, and lobbied to transform the site into an arts, educational, cultural and tourist precinct for the community. This campaign lasted for seven years and resulted in the Abbotsford Convent Arts Precinct as we know it today.
I had a studio at the Convent for a few years, and during this time my lantern making skills became known to the Collingwood Childrens Farm. I was invited to work with the Farm community of staff, volunteers and regular visitors, and make sculptural lanterns for the Winter Solstice Bonfire Event. It didn’t take a lot of persuading for them to agree to a fire drawing as well! And so for the past eight years I have been Artist in Residence at the Farm for Bonfire.
This work brings Farm staff and the broader Farm community together in a creative non-confrontational way, away from the general public. They get to make creative interpretations of the Farm animals, and life on the Farm. Each year Bridget Bainbridge, Farm Operations Manager, and I found family friendly themes and invented projects to tell the stories within that theme. We worked with the story of The Ugly Duckling one year; I made an internally illuminated giant swan who flew above the heads of the audience on a flying fox, swung around and flew back. And a shadow play with young people from the Yarra Youth Drama Program, that gave us opportunities for discussions about bullying, belonging and finding your people. The fire drawing depicted a duckling discovering a swan.
The Cow Jumped Over The Moon was fun. I made a full moon with craters containing childrens depictions of what they thought was on the moon. Bridget painted “hey diddle diddle” on the path leading into the farm, and I made a fire drawing depicting the cow jumping over the moon.
The ancient Slavic story of Baba Yaga, from which came Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel and other contemporary stories, was a great way to explore dangerous dark themes within the context of a safe family friendly event. Kids made lots of skulls and faces were painted like skulls. I made Baba Yaga’s house, mounted on chicken legs, with a fence made of skulls.
I have made a 4m high x 4m wide fire drawing each year and trained a team of Farm staff to install and ignite it. The lines of a fire drawing are up to 10cms wide when its lit, so the design needs to be sparse, and to ensure it burns evenly, from the bottom up, a team of people with fire torches need to be trained in handling live fire, and moving in synch. Holding live fire is very stimulating, and it’s always an exciting thing to introduce people to this thrilling experience.
Each year I’d make something big and sculptural and internally illuminated, often that kids could climb on, and smaller lanterns for lantern processions, giant puppets worn by Farm staff and meandering through the 4000 strong audience, or flying overhead, shadow plays … I designed many things, all depicting the theme for the year, and made in workshops I facilitated with Farm staff, corporate visitors, school groups, community groups and the wider Farm community.
The year after The Cow Jumped Over The Moon, I projected one of my videos onto the moon, which was suspended from a tree off to the side of the main Bonfire action. For a while that night I stood and listened to the conversations between small children and their parents about what was going on and heard some utterly delightful and surprisingly insightful interpretations!
There was no Winter Solstice Bonfire at the Farm in 2020 because of a global pandemic.