Feature image: Fremantle Biennale launch at the Fremantle Passenger Terminal. Credit Duncan Wright

Fremantle Biennale November 13 to 30

With its theme of “sanctuary” it is hard to imagine a better place to launch this year’s Fremantle Biennale than the Fremantle Passenger Terminal, the beautifully restored harbourside building that has processed hundreds of thousands of migrants and visitors (more like millions, probably) since it opened in 1960.

Designed by AT Brine & Sons — could there be a more appropriate name for an architectural firm putting up a structure on Victoria Quay? — and immaculately refurbished by Cox Architecture, the Fremantle Passenger Terminal was as packed as a post-war migrant ship for the unveiling of the port city’s 2025 site-responsive art extravaganza.

“The notion of sanctuary meant holy or sacred. It was inside a walled place — a temple or a shrine. By the middle ages it came to mean a place of asylum, where the vulnerable sought protection,” said Fremantle Biennale co-founder and artistic director Tom Muller in the opening of last week’s program launch.

“Today it has expanded. Sanctuary can be a shelter for humans, for animals, for cultures, even for ideas. In Walyalup, sanctuary has deep layers. It is a shoreline that has been a meeting place for thousands of ideas — it is a port of arrival and departures, a site of trade, migration, incarceration and also resistance,” continued Muller.

“Here, Sanctuary might mean ecological refuge, the coastal and marine habitats along the harbour. It might mean a social refuge, spaces for ceremony, activism or shelter. It could also be a cultural refuge, holding stories, languages and identities that might otherwise be completely erased.”

Muller and his colleagues then unveiled a wonderfully diverse program in which artists were invited to respond to the idea of Walyalup/Fremantle as a place of sanctuary, announcing the Manjaree/Bathers Beach precinct would be this year’s Biennale hub.

Over three weeks in November this somewhat unknown and under-utilised stretch of coastline will be activated by artworks and installations, including a seaside sound sauna, live music, workshops and an ocean-facing community kitchen.

Meanwhile up on High Street the Biennale is taking over the heritage-listed P & O Hotel, with more than 40 artists occupying the rooms, balconies, hallways and washrooms of the iconic watering hole that is currently awaiting redevelopment by the dynamic development duo of Adrian Fini and Nic Trimboli. It will be two nights of “intimate encounters and unexpected happenings,” according to the website.

Muller dug a little deeper into the idea of sanctuary when we spoke after his presentation, where everyone was asked to wear blue and black (I’m not sure why but it certainly added a chill vibe to the presentation).

“It is about how we bring a personal sense of place to a collectively shared place,” explained Muller, a multi-disciplinary artist who will be taking part in the P & O Hotel take-over, Room Service, which he also co-curated with Danielle Curana.

“Walyalup/Fremantle is a bubble, in many ways. It is fictional. It seems unreal. So inviting other voices, other identities into the mix can create some really healthy tensions,” said the Swiss-born Muller.

“This idea of belonging is important today. How do we belong in these contested lands?  How do we feel like we can take possession or how can we exist on this land without feeling like visitors the whole time? How can we acknowledge the first inhabitants and how can we co-exist in that space?” 

While none of the 115 artists and 90 events and performances featured in this year’s Fremantle Biennale dealing with the events in the Middle East (this could change, of course, as creative people do tend to speak their minds) Muller believes that the theme of sanctuary does invite reflection up what is happening in Israel and Gaza.

“The idea of sovereignty and re-colonising is being played out all around the word. So this year’s theme and the work it has inspired will speak to the events that are consuming people everywhere,” said Muller.

If work did come into their orbit that was dealing directly with the hot-button issue of Israel and Gaza he said the Fremantle Biennale would not shy away from it, as has been seen across the arts spectrum.

“We support every artist to freely express his or herself, and that includes an opinion around Palestine and Israel. We’re not here to politically advocate for a position. We are here to support the artistic voice, first and foremost. We are a sounding board and a platform that mirrors art practice and society. All of these voices together should co-exist,” he said.

The raison d’etre of the Fremantle Biennale — to use art to activate overlooked spaces and to open our eyes to the layers of history and experience embedded in the buildings and precincts of Walyalup/Fremantle — makes it one of the most unique art events in Western Australia, which accounted for the strong turn-out of art world power brokers and politicians, including the Creative Industries minister Simone McGurk and Fremantle mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge.

Apart from Manjaree/Bathers Beach, this year’s Fremantle Biennale will present worlds in the Whalers Tunnel, Old Customs House, Victoria Hall, Princess May Park, Moores Building, PS Art Space, WA Maritime Museum, Coles Car Park and the Naval Store. Further afield, venues include Goolugatup Lower Lands, and John Tompkin Reserve.

“Sanctuary 25 is one of the most ambitious and diverse programs yet and I’m excited to see it come to life and showcase our city as a hive of creativity and dialogue,” said Fitzhardinge.

“The Fremantle Biennale is always a highlight on the cultural calendar. It enriches community life and gives visitors an opportunity to experience Fremantle through a fresh lens of bold creativity, ideas and new perspectives.”

Other highlights include A Predatory Chord, an immersive and evolving sound and light installation created by Australian-born, Iceland-based composer and musician Ben Frost; Salt Lake, a pink lake that will be inside of the Old Customs House to recreate the surreal beauty Western Australia’s neon pink natural wonders created by Melbourne-based artist duo Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler; and Nepenthe, an  immersive, simulated multimedia project that merges video game environments,installation art and ambient soundscapes that is the work of artist and filmmaker Lawrence Lek, named by Time magazine as one of 2024’s most influential people in AI.

The Fremantle Biennale is on from November 13 to 30.