Dalison

20 Dalison is one of two remaining “hold out” homes in Wattleup's once-thriving township. After two decades of holding out, the home's former owners finally decided to sell in 2019 and 20 Dalison now awaits demolition—joining the fate of more than 300 homes that have been bought and razed by the government here over the past twenty years.

Strange's site-specific installation, designed and built in collaboration with a team of production, film, construction and lighting specialists, comprised a 260-square-metre video screen and film and theatre lighting, transforming the home into a choreographed light and sound "performance", set to Trevor Powers’ melodic, experimental score.

Through lighting design based on Strange's original hand-drawn visualisations, Dalison employs slow, poetic light and sonic movements to intentionally subvert the regular usage of this cutting-edge screen technology, common at music festivals. The result is a form of 'anti-concert'; a performance transmitted out into the now empty expanse around the home, where there is no audience.

Strange and his team documented this performance over a period of three nights, resulting in six new photographic works and an 18-minute film work set to Powers' score. On the last night of filming, a small group of community members, former residents and collaborators were invited to an intimate one-off live viewing of the installation before it was dismantled.

The story of the former owners—the Cukrov family—and that of Wattleup more broadly, as well as the making of the work, is captured in Making Dalison, a documentary short accompanying the artworks.

Created in collaboration with those former owners and other former Wattleup residents, the film and photographic works form a surviving record of this unique temporary installation; a eulogy to this home and the community it was once part of.

Dalison forms part of Strange’s ongoing global body of work exploring ideas of home and social displacement around the world and was exhibited in a series of exhibitions and screenings in 2022.

Read more about the project at www.dalisonproject.com.