A NEW FORM PUBLICATION CAPTURES THE PLACES, PEOPLE AND STORIES BEHIND THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN WHEATBELT

Katanning, two hundred and seventy kilometres south-east of Perth; a former backup singer to Cat Stevens translates at the local Shire for the forty different nationalities that call this small farming town home.

Albany, a port city on Western Australia’s southernmost coast; an anonymous group of locals stealthily yarn-bomb a significant local landmark, adorning it with Aboriginal colours and motifs under cover of night.

Northam, a rambling heritage town on the banks of the Avon River; a nationally celebrated architect returns to his rural hometown to open a sleek wine bar at the gateway to sheep and wheat country.

Following a trail of epic painted grain silo murals created as part of the PUBLIC Silo Trail, new FORM publication Stories from the Silo Towns catalogues some of the places, people and the stories behind the Western Australian Wheatbelt.

FORM’s Executive Director Lynda Dorrington said the social documentary project presented through first-person interviews, footage and imagery another side to a region which seems, at first blush, defined by its distance from anywhere.

“Stories from the Silo Towns follows FORM’s PUBLIC Silo Trail, a self-drive tourism trail spanning regional Western Australia in six towering silo murals,”  Ms Dorrington said.

“Behind this wide region’s sprawling mosaic of open paddock and empty scrubland are its people. Farmers who coax crops from hard soil and townspeople who stretch community across kilometres. This publication offers an insight into the everyday lives and activities of some of Western Australia’s extraordinary regional people.

From the regional hub of Northam to the old railway town of Merredin, via heritage rich Katanning to the small farming outposts of Pingrup and Newdegate; across to beautiful Ravensthorpe and, finally, finishing in the port city of Albany, Stories from the Silo Towns casts a light on the people behind some of Western Australia’s most distinctive regional towns, and works to reveal something of who they are, and what their communities mean to the rest of the State.”

Lotterywest is committed to community in Western Australia. In partnering with FORM on Stories from the Silo Towns, this agency has contributed to a project which helps us understand and sustain our living history as Western Australians.

Watch the full film here

Stories from the Silo Towns find it at FORM’s The Goods Shed and a number of Visitor and Community Resource Centres along the trail for the new price of $25. Or email us at publicsilotrail@form.net.au to order your copy.