Soiled feet rammed dirt: Mira Oosterweghel

Soiled feet rammed dirt is a text and spatial installation that responds to the history and industrial architecture of Incinerator Gallery. This new project by Mira Oosterweghel is informed as a new iteration of Bone with a hole—an exhibition originally presented at BLINDSIDE Gallery in Melbourne—exploring the artist’s childhood memories of spending time on her grandparents’ farm, consuming and reproducing stories of labour and landscape.

Soiled feet rammed dirt is a collective enmeshment of these childhood memories, inherently indoctrinated into settler narratives: reciting Banjo Patterson poems in school; nostalgic smells of sheep poo; and leather working in her grandparent’s shearing shed.

A stained glass window creates a new facade for the building, obscuring the view outside; a sheer curtain slices the space concealing a speaker. Sounds of mashed up memories echo through the space and a hung leather hide sparkles.

Exploring formative memories of consuming and reproducing stories of labour and landscape, Mira employs humour and a queer gaze to reflect on these experiences, whilst considering the relationship between the Essendon Incinerator as a monument designed to conceal the ugliness of industry and the falsity of Australian pastoral narratives.