Remnants: There She Goes My Beautiful World

Flaking wallpaper. Dusty curtains disinte­grating at a touch. Rusting flyscreens and the intricate frayed lengths of lace. Crum­bling sheets of piano music.

Every farm has a shed, a house, an un­ used cottage that’s gently decaying, filled with the remains of generations past. Rem­ nants, a mixed media art installation by two Central West artists and one Sydney art­ ist at this year’s Henry Lawson Festival in Grenfell, explores these forgotten places, tracked with dust and spiderwebs yet heavy with memories.

This June long weekend, Canowindra photographer Kate Barclay Sarah Ryan from Quandialla, and textile artist Calista Tam from Sydney are transforming Gren­fell’s Scout Hall into a space for meditation on decaying memories and stories about family and place.

As the idea for an exhibition began to build, Kate Barclay visited Quandialla, Cow­ra, Temora and Adelong photographing the abandoned interiors of old buildings.

“I have been admitted into spaces that have deep meaning for the community, the land holders and the custodians”, she says.

“Each building photographed held its own form of beauty for me. Monochromatic col­ our schemes, birds and insects leaving their own patterns or personal items abandoned that have melded into the structure. They all told a story I’ve sought to capture with each image”.

For Sarah Ryan – also the maker behind Quandialla Candles – the exhibition was a chance to delve into book pages, corre­ spondence, diaries and fabric, much of it sourced from the multi-generational farm she shares with her family.

Remnants: there she goes my beauti­ ful world opens from Thursday 6th June to Monday 10th June, with the official open­ ing on Friday 7th at 6pm during the Henry Lawson Festival. View the exhibition at the Grenfell Scout Hall, 6 Short St, 10am – 5pm.