This March, FORM’s ‘PUBLIC Silo Trail’ is bringing its program of street art and stories to Albany. Over the past three years, the trail has put regional Western Australia’s name in lights, bringing world-class murals to grain silos, public walls and transformer boxes in country towns across the state.
Phlegm in Northam for PUBLIC Silo Trail, 2015. Photograph: Bewley Shaylor. Courtesy of FORM
The 5th project in the unfolding trail will create a 35 metre high ephemeral artwork across the four western facing silos at CBH Group’s Albany Grain Terminal Ports depot, and a series of murals on Western Power transformer boxes throughout the town, as well as facilitating engagement workshops with local youth.
To date, the ‘PUBLIC Silo Trail’ has created artworks by local and international artists on public walls, CBH Group grain silos and Western Power electrical transformer boxes in Northam, Ravensthorpe, Merredin and Katanning. FORM has partnered with CBH Group, Western Power, Lotterywest, and with the Australian Government through the Building Better Regions Fund on the project, marking the contribution these organisations make to the lives of Western Australians.
Courtesy of FORM
CBH Group General Manager Grower and External Relations Brianna Peake said the Albany silos would be the first and only CBH grain port to be painted as part of the ‘PUBLIC Silo Trail’; ‘CBH’s Albany terminal exports premium, high-quality grain produced by our growers in the Albany zone to our customers across the world,’ Peake said. ‘Given its important role in the network, the port is due for refurbishment work over the next five years, and while this means the mural may not be up for as long as our other sites, this is the pragmatic nature of using working infrastructure as an artist’s canvas and what makes this partnership so exciting.’
As part of the trail, story gathering and social documentary project Homegrown Stories has been collecting the stories of the people who call these towns home, creating a record that will reveal the human narrative behind our state¹s regional towns and agricultural networks. Community engagement and the selection of participating artists for the project is currently underway by FORM, CBH Group, Western Power and the City of Albany, and selected artists will be announced in February.
