“ I grew up in China and came back when I was about 10. China was home for a long time so when I came back I felt very displaced. To be honest, I feel like that was the catalyst for my inquisitive nature to what it means to belong.
Fast track..I moved up here to the Northern Rivers about 7 years ago. I was studying Architecture at the time and as part of my Masters thesis I would go into the nature reserves in the Byron Shire where I would make floor plans of the different types of camps in which people were occupying space. I would discuss what it means to belong from the prospective of those who don’t live in a house. From there I obviously met a lot of crew and I stumbled upon The Bruns Brekkie which back then was called The Liberation Larder. This was 5 years ago when I was about 23. There was outreach centre in Brunswick Heads and they provided a beautiful service which was hard to work out who was the server and who was the servee. Bruns Brekkie is a not-for-profit organisation that collects excess food from local cafes and bakeries and puts on a community breakfast twice a week for those in need in the Brunswick Heads area. To me it was a really eye opening experience, not just the breakfast but the way I was surveying the land and how people were living. It was very clear to me that our sense of belonging is much more prescribed to community, things like routine, friendship and accountability. Down the list are basic needs like shelter. That is the biggest lesson I think I’ve learned about belonging. That’s why I think we need to be flipping the conversation about how we deal with the homeless situation because there is a direct route into improving people’s lives and it doesn’t usually involve, from what I’ve seen, putting people in cul de sacs with 4 walls and a pitched roof. It is embedded in community and so much embedded in how other people perceive us in that community.
Over the course of the last 6 years I feel like I’ve had such a privilege to get to know these members of community who are constantly made to feel like they don’t belong and constantly pushed out of the periphery. They constantly suffer or are a victim of a broader community assumption. They are always pigeon-holed into ‘that homeless group’. Blame is another thing I feel, as humans do, we stereotype a type or a group of people we immediately resort to blame. For instance the bush gets trashed from a minority group of people which does not reflect the homeless community at large. We always assume it’s all of them. That’s a really hard pill to swallow because homeless people live there, that’s their house. We need to stop assuming, stop stereotyping which is hard to do because it’s human nature but it’s not healthy for either side.
I’ve become friends with these men over the years, some I would call my very, very good friends. (photo of Verity and Rod in comments). They are very good people. They have a culture of their own as well and I feel like I’ve been a witness to so much of what I was explaining before, with blame and things like that. I feel like it was very important to show them in the light that I know them to be, which are good people. That was the push for the show. There are 9 men I have drawn. I know many females who are living in their cars. It just so happens that the nature of the bush is more habitable for men as they feel safer with their own energy whereas women feel safer in their car. We don’t see as many women because they need a locked door but there are many out there.
I actually worked on the building that we are in (Lismore Regional Gallery). I remember drawing that suspended ceiling with all the timber and I remember drawing those windows. It’s funny how it all comes around. I remember thinking at the time, I wonder if I’ll exhibit here? I’ll be doing a PhD which will be further studying what I’m unlocking here which is the perception of home. I would like to improve the quality or attempt to shed light on improving the quality of life for people who live in public space because the numbers are only growing and clearly what we are doing is not working. If people are choosing to live in the bush then we are not doing the right thing. We need to listen. I would like to improve the quality of life by doing a study which involves the members of those communities drawing their perception of home. I would like to make artwork about that to expand that discussion again. We need to have a frank, open discussion about what Crown land is for, first off. Is there a space for free camping? Who governs that space? It’s a shame how unprogressive we are. There is opportunities everywhere. Nothing I have said here is my idea, everything I have learned is from the bush communities and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Before I do my PhD I’m going on a trip with my Grandpa who is a painter. We are going up the Darling and we are going to paint what is happening to the Darling which is another sad state of affairs. Grandpa is 87. He’s lived in the bush many months of the year for his entire life. He usually goes alone but this year I’m going with him. After that I’ll do my PhD because I am absolutely obsessed with public space and I think it needs a really fresh new look.”
Verity’s exhibition ‘Where are we supposed to go’ is currently at the Lismore Regional Gallery.