BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Okay, so it may not be easy to name just two of the biggest challenges we face in Australia today. But Sydney composer Tom Avgenicos hits the nail on the head when he says climate change and housing affordability are right at the top — and his new large-scale collaborative work Ghosts Between Streams tackles both.
Tom would walk each day through Stringybark Creek Reserve, Lane Cove on Cammeraygal Country — a rich natural environment framed by high-density residential living that is now, the composer argues, threatened by urban development. Over time, Tom started to notice the destructive human impact on the creek and its wildlife, and felt moved to speak about the issue through his music.
Ghosts Between Streams uses visual art, dance, and music to evoke solastalgia — a sort of existential dread that happens when our natural world starts changing around us. Tom’s 2022 Freedman Fellowship-winning project is about to receive its world premiere at ACO Pier 2/3, and we wanted Tom (pictured below) to share its story ahead of the big event.
Ghosts Between Streams is about to have its premiere, but I’d love you to take us back to where it all began.
In 2020, my ensemble Delay 45 made a short film Flux, a collaboration with Australian-Japanese dancer Reina Takeuchi, film director Monisha Chippada, and videographer Jack Single. The short film explored notions of flow and movement emerging from various landscapes. Using my music as a way to connect and collaborate with other artists was a profound experience, and an area of my creative practice I wanted to explore further.
From late-2019 to 2021, I lived across the road from Stringybark Creek [Lane Cove] in Cammeraygal Country. I walked through nearly every day with my dog Soomi, and developed a deep connection to the landscape with the many sights, smells, and terrain inspiring evocative musical ideas. Hidden away in a high-density residential area, it had a story that I thought needed to be told.
Winning the 2022 Freedman Jazz Fellowship seemed to happen at the perfect time; I wanted to collaborate with artists who could capture this story through their media, creating a vivid audio-visual work that would have emotional power and resonance. The fellowship has provided both the time and money to make this possible.
So tell us a bit about this idea of solastalgia, which I understand underpins the work.
Solastalgia is the sadness felt at the loss or change of a beloved place in nature.
I first visited Stringybark in late 2019, just before the bushfires. By early 2020, the creek was nearly empty.
During lockdown, there was mass construction in the area with run-off from worksites discolouring the creek, and tawny frogmouths distressed on the forest floor, followed by a huge rain event leading to sewage overflow and Sydney Water having to close off the trail.
It’s incredibly sad, especially when you think of the rich food source it was for the Cammeraygal people for thousands of years.
How did you come up with the title Ghosts Between Streams?
It refers to the placards along the trail recounting stories of the rich flora and fauna in the area, and ‘a magical place’ where children would swim and play.
Whilst Stringybark is a beautiful place, this description suggests it is a ghost of its former self.
Tell us a bit about the composition process — how you interacted with the reserve, and how you built on your connection to this environment.
In the past, my compositional process has been kind of arbitrary. But for Ghosts Between Streams, everything has been written with intention. Through my music, I aim to evoke my connection to the space, sometimes conceptually by taking certain feelings and sentiments, or sometimes literally through audio samples I have collected on site — such as sounds from an underpass or a ‘magic’ rock where I would often sit and ponder. A very different process for me.
Your project embraces a huge range of musical styles, artforms, and number of collaborators. What would you say are the benefits in accessing so many artistic mediums to express a story like this?
Primarily, the benefit is that it adds greater context and an extended audio-visual palette to evoke the underlying sentiments of a work.
The challenge with so much creative stimulus has been to not overwhelm the artistic vision. Working with Monisha Chippada in the role of visual creative director has been incredibly important in ensuring everything and everyone is used intentionally to help shape and express the story.
I think the artists and their mediums will bring all the performers and audience into the space.
What can we expect from the visuals, including your collaboration with set designer Raya Tolentino?
Without giving too much away, Raya has been on site at Stringybark to create an epic backdrop and sculptural pieces which will activate the space. The sculptural pieces have even been moulded from rock formations on Stringybark!
The music celebrates the flora and fauna of Stringybark Creek Reserve. Do you consider your art to function as environmental activism? Do you aim to encourage others to think about protecting their local urban spaces from development?
That’s a good question. In some ways yes, and some ways no. I think Ghosts Between Streams heeds warnings to urban development, but I am very much for urban development. The only way to end the current housing affordability crisis is to build more houses and higher-density living. But where and how this development occurs must be carefully considered, as the consequences could be dire.
I guess you could say this project brings together arguably two of the greatest challenges of our time: climate change and housing affordability.
Thanks Tom. Anything else you’d like to share?
I acknowledge the Cammeraygal people of the Eora nation, the traditional custodians of the land upon which this work was composed, inspired, and conceptualised. I recognise their continuing cultural and spiritual connections to the land, waters, and sea and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
Experience Ghosts Between Streams at ACO Pier 2/3 from 29-30 June.
Ghosts Between Streams is co-presented by the Sydney Improvised Music Association and supported by the Freedman Fellowship. Collaboration partners include Monisha Chippada, Gerard “Kid Tek” Cabellon, Reina Takeuchi, Raya Tolentino, Delay 45 (Ashley Stoneham, Roshan Kumarage and Dave Quinn), Apex String Quartet (Ben Adler, Beatrice Colombis, Phoebe Gilbert, Noah Oshiro and Reena Oh), Zoe Dixon, Jordan East and Jack Single.
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Images supplied. Featured image by Yincan Huang. Tom headshot by Jack Single; performance capture by Jordan Munns.
