Forget the city … Bundanon is magic

Bundanon is seamed with the story of Australia, writes Nikki Gemmell. Picture: Zan Wimberley

Around the breakfast table, a concert pianist, a ceramicist, a cellist, an art critic and a writer. It’s a brew of different disciplines, all bouncing off each other in a conversation about audacious rogues of creativity. Why here? Because once upon a time an elderly man had a vision. Of a congregation of artists, in the cathedral of his land. But his dream was wider than this. He wanted scientists too, and schoolkids, and indigenous people whose ancestors had used this land as a gathering place for thousands of years; he wanted a dialogue with the local community and the city slickers, the creative and the curious. His father told him once, “You must learn to behave in a way that doesn’t hurt people,” and now we have the embodiment of that principle – this generous gift of land, for all of us.

It is Bundanon. On the banks of the mighty Shoalhaven River, several hours’ south of Sydney. 1,100ha across four allotments, gifted to the Australian people 30 years ago by the painter Arthur Boyd. Is there anything else in the world like it? A creative hub that’s publicly governed and open to everyone, with a constitution that specifies a celebration of landscape and the arts, as well as science, nature conservation, education and farming. Several hundred visual artists, writers, dancers and musicians take up residencies every year.

There are 22 buildings, ranging from the honeyed sandstone of a colonial homestead to the weathered grey boards of bushmen’s huts and a Glenn Murcutt study centre with colours echoing the spotted gum forest behind it, a soaring concrete gallery built into a hillside and a vast black caterpillar protruding across a verdant dipping hill; an accommodation block dubbed “The Bridge” by the architectural genius Kerstin Thompson. All a wonder.

Bundanon is seamed with the story of Australia. From indigenous history to white settler colonialism through to the creativity of the Boyds and now a dynamic conversation between scientific, conservation, aboriginal and creative industries. I am invited to spend the weekend for a 30th birthday exhibition with three artists riffing off the drawings and ceramics of Arthur’s father, Merric, who urged his son to behave in ways that don’t hurt. Arthur himself would be chuffed at this latest realisation of his vision, several decades down the track. And, oh, the view. Arthur said he “couldn’t exhaust this landscape”. It’s the sinuous curves of the river and towering forests of spotted gum, it’s mist on mirror-still water in the morning and resting on dips of hills at dusk, it’s saddles of bark draped on tree branches and moss-dappled boulders as big as cars. And beyond the chatter of birds there’s a silence that’s alive, that hums. The roar of crammed life seems very removed from all this.

Forget the big bucks going to those flash mobs in city galleries – it’s regional galleries where you see the really tangible cultural benefits. There’s a lovely dialogue here with the wider community. Bundanon employs locals, educates them and gifts them wonder.

And now the crickets are coming on, the night is congregating. Tomorrow I leave this magic place. Kangaroos graze in brazen communion on the lawn outside my window alongside a wombat moving speedily, bizarrely, across the length of it. I turn to my laptop. This page is almost written, words come strong in this place. I don’t want to leave yet must. But I’ll keep coming back because this powerful double bend in the river gathers humans to it, as it has done for thousands of years, singing us into stillness while also filling us up. How is it possible that the wonder increases, over the years, with this place? Yet it does. Arthur put it simply: “I like the idea of people talking to one another.” That’s the essence of Bundanon. We are so lucky to have it, all of us.