For the Best promises a new evolution in the highly anticipated and memorable community engagement programs Whiskey & Boots offer. Partnering with The Last Great Hunt and writer Jeffrey Jay Fowler, For the Best fuses community interviews, music and performance, seeking insight into why we sometimes lose contact with the people who were once closest to us.

An exploration of textural painting examining the relationship between immigration and assimilation within the Iranian diaspora. Yasamin Khadembashi’s project focusses on aspects of Persian culture, women's liberties, queerness, art, poetry, landscape and music, utilising the medium of impasto oil paints to mimic the texture of fabric, water, hair and a multitude of other materials.

Drawing on the participatory nature of informal inscription culture, Vahri McKenzie and Gemma Ben-Ary create a series of performance art experiments and woven fibre artworks in conversation with a graffiti site on the Helena River.

Johnny and Izy look at the interplay of language and identity for artists of the Asian diaspora in Australia, inviting artists to participate in forums and community arts projects as an exploratory tool to inform curatorial practice and projects.

The Veranda Studio turns into a hub of textile joy when ten of the stitched & bound artists open their arts practice to visitors. Dividing the residency in blocks of time will allow visitors to come back again and again to meet different artists, watch their techniques up close, learn a few tricks and contribute to community projects through stitch.

Braiding Memories is an intergenerational research project led by artist Annick Akanni, exploring the profound bond between Annick and her Tanzanian mother, Dottie, through the art of braiding,

Mothermorphosis invites ten independent artist-m/others to collaborate through ‘creating a space’ that collectively imagines a feminist maternal future,

Our hands, my heart, all at once is a creative residency project led by Colin Smith and Gabby Loo. Exploring queerness, trans identities, and neurodiversity

A multidisciplinary celebration of the mountainous environments of WA’s South West, Alex Boyds’ The Living Mountains uses field sketchbooks, photographs and footage recorded in the ranges themselves

Utilising bright and alluring materials, Apparent and Immanent from Megan Shaw uses MJAC’s building and considers its role as a heritage site

MATERIAL CONFLUENCE

Martien van Zuilen focuses on the nexus between human interaction with the land, heritage, conservation, and the provenance of the materials she selects. Building on her established career in handmade felt and fibre art, van Zuilen investigates the marrying of wool fibres with complementary techniques and materials.

From My Mother’s Mother

Persie Toindepi is a Zimbabwean-Australian emerging artist. Currently, the primary focus of her work is hair, which she uses as a tool to dissect her struggles with femininity, masculinity, race and her upbringing in a Western culture.

Dream Pool Press

A printing revolution in our sleep, Gok-Lim Finch’s Dream Pool Press provides space for the community to connect through their shared imaginations, the pool of dreams. Finch will host creative storytelling and zine workshops, inviting people to learn how to produce their own publications using a risograph printer and office photocopier.

Consume

A collaborative residency project between Elizabeth Knuckey and Nina Raper, CONSUME investigates the consumption of women’s bodies and stories. Looking closely at the cycle of consumption of women's experiences, it will be a material investigation through practice-based processes to create a resolved body of work, using forms of 'women's work' and commercial mediums designed for mass consumption.

Various artists connected to DADAA’s Midland Hub will work in residence across a variety of media. DADAA is a leading arts and health organisation that creates access to cultural activities for people with disability or mental illness.

Falling UP!

Collaborators: Sze Tsang and Georgi Ivers

Falling UP! is a work-in-progress project that aims to bomb the ubiquitous action-man-hero narrative by presenting an alternative story of “Mom Rage”. Writer/Director/Performer Michelle Hall will work with creative collaborators Sze Tsang and Georgi Ivers, diving into the deeply gendered, undervalued labour of care work.

Muriel’s residency focuses on the development of a dance syllabus for Maloya dance, which will involve identifying common movements and developing a well-organised teaching method.

Alongside the West Australian Quilters’ Association’s stitched and bound exhibition, local contemporary quilt artists will work in residence, challenging the concept of the ‘quilt’ medium.

André Lipscombe will be trialing experimental methods of painting over the course of his residency. André is a visual artist based in Perth, represented by Art Collective WA, whose practice focuses on a formalist approach to painting and drawing.

With a belief that everyone should be able to access the conversations that happen around art, Bowman will write for and in response to the arts using forms (zines and audio) that have low barriers to access for the community.

Is time a sensory experience? In this print-based project, van Leeuwen will explore transparency, layering and repetition to mark the passage of felt time in a personal chronography. Using natural forms, a recurring motif, these unique state monoprints will utilise handmade stencils, found textures and drawing techniques as markers of unfolding events and traces of memory.

Morgan, an artist and arts educator, continues developing a body of work encompassing painting, ceramic sculpture and printmaking that explores themes of social control, wellbeing, mindfulness and mental health.

Various artists connected to DADAA’s Midland Hub will work in residence across a variety of mediums. DADAA is a leading arts and health organisation that creates access to cultural activities for people with disability or mental illness.

Muia will develop a body of experimental etchings inspired by the unique and diverse flora and fauna found in Perth’s eastern suburbs and hills. Using several different printing techniques on a single artwork, the outcomes will be exhibited in his solo exhibition Upper Reach at Midland Junction Arts Centre, opening 6 May 2022.

Whiskey & Boots will listen to and record the ideas of young people in the community of Midland for their upcoming verbatim performance The Quadrangle.

An ensemble development process led by playwright and director Suzanne Ingelbrecht to create a masquerade of storytelling, music and gothic romance, perfect for our post-COVID, post-truth times.

During her time in residence, Fiona Gavino will be creating an installation through random weaving outside Midland Junction Arts Centre in collaboration with members of the public and workshop participants as part of HOLD.

Fiona Gavino is a nationally recognised fibre artist and educator who applies basket making materials and techniques to create sculpture and installation. From 2012-2020 she was the Professional Development and Training Officer for ART ON THE MOVE.

During her time in residence, Tania Spencer will be creating an installation outside Midland Junction Arts Centre in collaboration with members of the public and workshop participants as part of HOLD.

Tania Spencer is a multi media artist and often works with recycled and found materials. Living and working rurally from Lake Grace, Tania has exhibited since 2000 across Western Australia as well as in Adelaide, Sydney and Japan.

During her time in residence, Liliana Stafford will be creating a woven structure in the Midland Junction Arts Centre foyer in collaboration with members of the public and workshop participants.

Winner of the 2020 Castaways Sculpture Alcoa Major Award, Stafford describes herself as a storyteller through art, finding inspiration and materials on regular walks in the natural wetland near her home.

Exploring how painting place brings the past and present together, Annette endeavours to research the landscape of Parkerville through a series of plein air paintings of the site and through documentation of her father’s recollections of his time spent there as a child.