Perth Voice Interactive

AWARD-WINNING poet John Kinsella and Perth composer Simon Charles have joined forces to create an eerie and poignant homage to the York suspension bridge.

The first of its kind in WA, the footbridge was built in 1888 to connect the small rural town of York with the Holy Trinity Church on the other side of the river.

Despite several floods, accidents and mishaps over the years, it’s still standing today and has become somewhat of a quirky tourist attraction in the region.

In a bold spoken-word performance, Kinsella reflects on the bridge’s colourful past and the environmental impact of colonisation. His trademark timbre floats over a strange brew of ambient noises captured by Charles on and around the bridge.

The sound artist attached a microphone to the bridge’s structure to record its vibrations and resonance, and even plonked a special mic (hydrophone) in the murky Avon River to capture some aquatic sounds.

“There are some beautiful sounds of water rushing and trickling past the hydrophone, which have a completely different ambience to sounds above the water,” Charles says

“Sadly, there is very little aquatic life captured in these recordings, except for a few underwater insects.

“This is indicative of the impact of agriculture in the region, which John refers to in his text.

“There are people in town who remember fishing and catching gilgies (freshwater crayfish) in the river, but now the health of the river is so poor that people no longer swim in it, let alone catch food.”

Developed for this year’s York Festival, the pair collaborated on the piece, eventually called Visceral Fragments, over several months, exchanging text and music back and forth until a “collaborative language emerged”.

Charles says Kinsella came up with the initial idea of using the suspension bridge as a metaphor for tension and connection.

“Aside from this literal sense, I took ‘tension’ to mean a tension between a colonial presence and Nyoongar Ballardong country, and ‘connection’ in the sense that meaningful connection with the land is possible,” Charles says.

“Both John and I reside on Nyoongar Balladong country and both share an interest in exploring our relationship to it through our respective and collaborative artistic practices.”

An in-demand composer and sound artist, Charles has performed all over the world including festivals and concerts in Los Angeles, Berlin and Oslo.

Blending traditional instruments, field recordings and other-worldly noises, he creates a beautiful, minimalist and at times eerie palette of sound – imagine the soundtrack to Solaris (2002) meets Philip Glass.

Born in Perth in 1963, Kinsella has written over 20 poetry books, as well as plays and fiction, and is a passionate educator and editor.

Known for blending the experimental with the pastoral in his poetry, he takes inspiration from the rugged yet beautiful WA landscape. 

His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books, and he has taught at Cambridge University, where he is a Fellow of Churchill College.

Charles says their collaboration could be the start of a beautiful friendship and they are working on a new piece about another famous landmark in York.

“We’re planning to develop this with The Long Form, a duo based in Berlin with whom we performed Visceral Fragments at Audible Edge earlier this year,” he says.

“The Long Form (Rebecca Lane and Jon Heilbron) are old friends of mine, who happened to be visiting WA for the Audible Edge Festival.

“From this chance encounter between John, myself, and The Long Form, we’ve decided that we’re keen to continue developing work in this way, especially around place-based themes in relation to Nyoongar Ballardong country.” 

But right now, the pair are getting ready to perform Visceral Fragments at the Holy Trinity Church in York on September 28 at 7:30pm and on September 29 at 1:30pm, as part of the 2024 York Festival.

The performance will feature guitarist Jameson Feakes and bassist Djuna Lee, two stalwarts of Perth’s experimental music scene. For tix and more details see yorkfestival.com.au/event/visceral-fragments.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK