(1-6) – Screenshots from a Float residency film, Float Diaries vol.1, 2023

The FLOAT crew share their journey of creating an arts residency and Observatorium on Lake Tyers, while Isaac Carne shares his day as a float-keeper.

A few Far East Gippsland artists conceived a notion to build a viable and environmentally sustainable FLOATing arts residency. A permanent, globally-enticing space for artists & environmentalists. We did it.

FLOAT. We designed it. We built it.  We operate it. We share it. We look after it. And we learn a lot about this lake—Bung Yarnda—as we do it. Artists come from all over the place. They taste it. They stay. They share their work, here – and to a global audience. They come back. They bring friends. Over and over.

THE FLOAT VESSEL. 10m x13m. Glorious. But we fret about greywater, compost loos, its operating systems, fresh water, algae, jetties and lifejackets. We repair. We maintain. We plan the next big thing. We induct the next artist, clean and prepare the vessel and then paddle them out to their extraordinary residence, towing their belongings with us.

Observatorium

We know that observation is the most important job for us. We paddle. We sit. We notice things. We monitor. Data, but not as most know it. Artist-made data tells stories that everyone listens to. We gather sounds — like the bats in the trees around us. We hear the fish jumping underneath us. Banging their heads on the floor below us. We notice the weather. We noticed when the lake got so low that we collectively held our breath for rain. For ages. Things that casual visitors dismiss as “yuk”.

Yes. We still get overwhelmed at times with the job of “doing it all”–maintaining such an exquisite space in a precious Ramsar-listed location. But there’s something much bigger going on here. We rely on the artists who come to stay, to understand that it’s not really about them. Or us. It’s ‘life’ as we know it. It’s shaping a future for what art can be in regional communities.

From my point of view that means translating it into (un)economics

How nature seduced us

FLOAT. Such a simple, snappy word. Who’d have known how HARD it would be. To build a FLOATING ART STUDIO. Our intention was simply to … “Love our lake”. To gaze at the stars above it. To “navigate by nature”. Old school. To make art.

But reality made it hard. Rules and regs were hurdles. It took three years of hard slog to build it. And thousands of hours of volunteer sweat. Poured into an artistic vision. But we made it! Truth be known—we made something even better. A COMMUNIVERSITY.

On the 1st of December 2018, we launched our FLOAT VESSEL here at Fisherman’s Landing. But what got us here? The evolution of an intuitive, regenerative community practice. I wrote then:

Exhausted conversations by the campfire, after paddling hard into the headwind—being fed local venison perfectly prepared by Stu Derham before all crumpling into our beds. Our talk slowly became full of hope for a future underpinned by this “Rights of Nature” chatter we were hearing. A curious expression to us, back then, it has since come to explain our world—celebrating, protecting, conserving the place of Bung Yarnda. Here was a story of place—conceived in such good company.

Our first conversations led to deep and heated debates on citizen democracy, transforming governance, and the new economy – all built from the grassroots up. The debate has held us in good stead, and found us the allies that still gather around the vessel – six years later.

Along the way, we have come to love the lake very, very much. We watch it. We kayak it. We paddle on its gooey shores and watch the jellyfish oomph past us. We pick up bits of stinking rubbish around the edges. We make art about it and write poetry to it.

The challenge now, under this evolving philosophy of ‘creative environmental stewardship’, is to make the vessel come alive while also making a living. How can great art + environmental passion + dare we say ‘kindness’ create jobs and drive our economy?

Economics

There’s such a long history of expecting art to be given away here (the free stuff “communities do” to make regional life adorable.) Or cut from every well-meaning project. We need a new arts economy with a persuasive voice.

So we’re thinking harder about the economics of real life, real value, real jobs, real tourism—and all the things that provide happy, balanced lives for the good people who live here.

So. Now we’ve got: FLOAT (our handmade residency vessel), Iceworks (long abandoned ice factory, now home of the FLOAT consultancy co-op), Slipway Sheds (long abandoned fishing boat repair sheds, now the best space for ephemeral postcard exhibitions, eco and regen forums, and finding local sardines, scallops and oysters).

But even better. Come for this:

Feral MBA

Our past Feral MBAs (2023 and 2024) have convinced us that we’ve found the peephole to our region that woos artists to Far East Gippsland, with no idea of what to expect – seeking biz wisdom – not biz plans and finding so much more. They fall in love with the place, the thinking, the conversation, the generosity. The fMBA alumni become committed to growing what they’ve just seen and heard and felt. 2025 is ready to go. http://www.float3909.com/feral-mba

FLOAT.CAAMP (Community Applied Arts Mentor Pilot)

And. Now we’ve built a (tiny pilot)  ‘art school’ to overcome the yawning gap left by TAFE’s disappearance and a govt policy focus on STEM not STEAM.

We call it FLOAT.CAAMP to consciously avoid the “school” word. Co-designed and co-operated with local 17 y-o school refuser, and unsatisfied creative Amy Allender, who steps up every day to co-manage the curriculum in a community-owned long-empty ice factory. Cross-generational, collaborative and co-operative and now offering paid mentor roles to the mid-generation artists who were abandoned by the disappearance of their arts’ future. Local knowledge shared in free public spaces: under-used halls, overgrown gardens, windblown beaches, across wobbly jetties, forest and fungi walks and abandoned sheds. Endless chaotic connections being made between us. We’ve corralled the best “teachers” around our experimental crew of school refusers, and wise elders, and that fab generation in between, to create FLOAT.CAAMP to ensure a next-gen of FLOAT.

Josh Willoughby

Josh Willoughby is a perfect example of the (early-mid career) creative mentors we engage at FLOAT.CAAMP to inspire emerging artists in unconventional ways. Long time forest defender, living off-grid in Goongerah, creative environmental activist, zine maker, storyteller, poet, printmaker, sewing machine artist – then Feral MBA graduate in 2023. We create pop-up paid gigs for multi-faceted skill-sharers. CAAMP  participants hang on every word, while creating their own zines – under Gippsland skies, in the far paddock…

“I have a long background in environmental activism. This informs the majority of my creative practice. Centred around celebrating nature and searching for global connectivity I seek cross cultural congruence. The more elemental and closer to nature the endeavour, the more likely it is to have trans global similarities. Through painting, print making, poetry, textiles, I strive to remind us that we are all standing on one planet, sharing it with: grasses, trees, birds, insects, moss, mammals Indeed we are all earthlings (grasses included).”

Thanks to 6 years of groundwork we now have a community-driven arts economy – a FLOAT VESSEL, AN ARTS RESIDENCY. FLOAT CURATOR AND FLOAT KEEPER, A COMMUNIVERSITY @ ICEWORKS, FLOAT.CAAMP, A GATHERING + MAKING SPACE AT THE SLIPWAY. AN ON FOOT WALKING ENTERPRISE TO HELP US EXPLORE THE PLACES WE ALL LOVE. (All thanks to Creative Victoria (OBSERVATORIUM) and Regional Arts Victoria (RENEWAL . FLOAT AIR) – stepping up when traditional economics failed the universe).

Come and meet us

• East Gippsland Winter Festival  Launch @ The Slipway Sheds Lakes Entrance /   21 June
• Lakes Lights Lakes Entrance /  6 July
• On Foot To The Ocean Entrance /  23 June/ 7  July / 14 July
• A Postcard From Lakes Entrance / 22 June / 13 July
• Fest Of Flora  Fauna  Lakes Entrance / 1 December – 1O December
• Feral MBA 2025 Lakes Entrance / 15-16 February 2025 / 21-23 March 2025.

The float keeper

A day of the float keeper started in 2020, in the rainforests of Errinundra.

It was the tall wet forests that made me fall in love with Australia again.

The resilience, the people, the community, the strength.

The fight for the forests gave me the purpose I was yearning for.

I belonged here.

Errinundra rainforest – the largest tract of cool temperate rainforest in mainland Australia.

In 2023, further downstream, FLOAT opened an opportunity for a FLOAT Keeper apprentice. A FLOAT caretaker.

To learn – and discharge duties – from Josie Jakobi.

My only requirement, a spot where I could park my tiny house on wheels.

And this is how FLOAT continued to provide affordable housing for me.

In exchange for two, or three, or four days of attention a month.

Sometimes less, sometimes more. A fluid bartering.

Tiny House in Goongerah, right before towing it to Lakes Entrance to become the Float Keeper.

But the FLOAT Keeper role is not just…

Taking Simon, the new FLOAT A.I.R. on board.

Explaining how to use the most important system on board: the composting toilet.

Wee needs to be carted off board and dumped in the carpark toilet.

Luckily we have an easier number 2 treatment on board now. The Observatorium.

Grey water is pumped from the holding tank to the 60L drum, then slowly filtered through the marsh bed system before returning to the lake.

The solar and battery system. Simon lives off-grid. He’ll be fine. Some have tried to plug a hair dryer and microwave at the same time.

Float things need to work at a different pace. Lake pace.

It takes some time to settle in.

Simon will be on board for six weeks.

He will be a great guest. You can usually tell well before the artist’s arrival. By the questions asked -or lack thereof-

FLOAT caretaking also looks beyond the vessel.

Jack and Grace Whadcoat next door.

Their family was one of the first white settlers of Mill Point. Right after the land was stolen from Aboriginal caretakers.

Jack, after his father left them 5 acres of land, cleared the whole lot.

A bulldozer sent.

Still regrets it to this day.

But a survivor tree who couldn’t be toppled.

The motel, they call it.

Still standing strong.

The Motel Tree, 2024

Today, the pump seems not to do its job.

I might have to paddle over to have a look.

Fix.

Repair.

Tend to.

Then back to Bungalook.

The Float network of sustenance.

A community-led landscape of solutions.

A beacon of possibilities.

The sky.

My home.

The Bung Yarnda Observatorium

Tags

Australia | fresh&salt | G35 | Gippsland | residency | Victoria | water