You are now able to pre-order the upcoming print inspired by the experiences and observations during the trip.

Friday, 19 September, 2025

I stayed in Palermo last night - an old friend used to live here and all I can think is that it suits him perfectly. It feels like it's being held together by heat, tags and good people, I really love it. It's just a quick stay for a night before I come back at the end of the trip, which already feels like a great way to wrap up and reflect on the week ahead.  

I picked up the hire car at lunch, and got straight out on the road towards Gibellina, which is only an hour from the airport. Driving on the right is definitely new to me, but the landscape along the coast of Sicily was incentive enough to keep moving to see more - there are huge, dramatic rock faces on one side of the freeway and deep blue water on the other.

Pulling into Gibellina was like landing on the moon - I've been reading a lot about the town, someone called it 'Planet Gibellina', which is so fitting. The streets curve around and look like part of a Sfogliatella from above, and then on ground level, I'm looking at angular, tightly packed homes with rolling fields stretching out behind them. It feels wild to pull in and finally see it all in person, it feels like there is a sculpture - like a full, public art project sculpture - on every other corner. The first few hours were just about getting in and organised, chatting with the owner Miguel to triple check I'm in the right spot, and making sure the stove top coffee pot works. 

I'm travelling relatively light compared to what I'm used to with bigger projects, so I just have a notebook, small tin of paint and some brushes to bring along with me as I explore. I really want to focus on taking photos here - I feel like I constantly take pictures, but then keep them to myself, so I'm excited to see what references, collections and patterns come together here and how they'll influence the print. 

I got out late as I wanted to save my first real walk around for photos for the daytime. There were kids on motorbikes, doing wheelies on deserted streets, a quick drink at Bar Millennium (looks like it sounds) before finding dinner at an incredible local steak place, which came complete with two lovely strays who must eat insanely well. I melted into the night a bit, with a slow walk home, feeling both excited and strangely nervous to finally head to Cretto di Burri tomorrow. 

Saturday, 20 September, 2025

I was actually feeling a bit nervous setting out to see Cretto di Burri today - it felt like a funny combination of first-day nerves, and in a way, never meet your heroes. I first saw Burri's work 2014 at the Guggenheim in NYC, where I also saw Frank Stella's works at The Whitney.  Each exhibition talked about their individual approaches of 'painting' with sculpture, forms, and material manipulations, and both artists really resonated with me - Stella for his graphic, controlled style, and Burri for the rich textures and unpredictable results that he achieved with burning, tearing and casting works. 

I drove the 25 minutes from Gibellina on some pretty interesting roads, and with every curve, I was waiting to see the installation unfold in front of me. I finally saw (and drove right by) a vantage point to look out over the work, which I'm going to revisit on Monday - right now I felt like I was finally here, and I wanted to be up close. I felt like a little kid on a school excursion - packed sandwiches, water bottles, a pinned map in case I got lost - in comparison to other people who just pulled over to check it the installation on the way to something else. I can't really put my thoughts from the day into a linear form just yet, but I loved it. 

• It looks like it's sliding down the hill.

• It's really hard.

• How do I get inside?

• When do I go inside?

• And it just disappeared.

• Heavy.

• It's so steep.

• It's so hot. 

• What's inside all of this?

• This is hard. 

• It's how you might imagine the ground to move in an earthquake, but with this absolute weight to it. Like when you snap a blanket, the landscape is like the wave of fabric, caught in concrete.

• There is so much variation in this concrete?

• It feels like you look out, and see someone from across the street. But then you take two steps, and even though the height across all the forms doesn't change, things just disappear in an instant, in flat planes and bends.  

• A kid called Alberto is playing in it, chasing his parents. There's very few people here, all in different states of interest or play, but nothing about it feels disrespectful - the whole thing feels like an invitation to come and walk through the streets, think about the people and buildings that would've been there, the lives and forms that were in here, not just 'the' earthquake. It's melancholic and solemn, but so still and open. 

• It's hard to be here, it feels so heavy. 

• It feels like my head is above water, the concrete blocks only come up to my neck. It feels like a kind of relief to be able to see up and out, but then it just keeps going. 

• Like a tomb or grave, it's like walking through a graveyard. 

• It's very beautiful it it's detail, lines, how you look out the vineyards and feilds, greens and warm olive colours, and a small selection of abandoned buildings as you curve around. 

• You can really see the different stages of concrete and completion.

• It's so bright I can barely see what photos I'm taking.

• Formwork of how they built it, reinforced 'walls' of each block. 

• Are there remnants of the city inside it?

• It almost looks like letterforms when you look across the landscape, when you catch the blocks at the right angle.

• Walking around in the heat, the lower height of blocks feels really open but it creates this vulnerability, like in grief, like there's no where to really hide from it all - you could curl up in the shade, but you have to keep going at some point. This height makes you feel like you can see out and have some perspective, but you also can't get any respite, it just keeps unfolding. The blocks feel like they have their own shape and tone, like you can distinguish them from a distance, but then you're too close to see the difference. 

• This reminds me of Andalusia.

• It's so hot.

• I'm meant to take a photo of myself in places.

• Yep, it's hot. 

• These clouds are coming in, I need to get down and see their shadows on this thing.

Collecting these points now is so much more than I thought I was experiencing at the time - I was so happy just being out there on my own, watching the light change and taking in the details of the concrete and forms.  It was such an intense way to experience a town - usually you would look around corners or up streets, but here feels like you're looking to where a neighbour should be, it's so normal in a way, but then it's levelled. It's such a melancholic artwork, and such a physical state to be in. I'm going to come back on Monday, and see what comes up tomorrow too. 

Sunday, 21 September, 2025

Today was super slow, which I'm sure is how a Sunday in Sicily should be. I read a bit more about Cretto di Burri before heading out to walk around the town, and I'm going to hunt around for some documentaries when I land in London next month. I've really never seen anything like Gibellina - it's one of a few towns that were rebuilt in new locations after the 1968 earthquake. All of the towns had different speeds and approaches to rebuilding, with Gibellina embracing contemporary architecture and artists. It's an amazing concept, with a mix of modernnist and brutalist buildings, and sculptures at every turn. People just seem to live next to them with a quiet agreement that Gibellina Nuova is about a slower pace. 

I went for a walk and within five minutes from the apartment, arrived at Chiesa Madre, a Brutalist church designed by Luisa Aversa and Ludovico Quaroni in 1972. I didn't go into the main nave, but man, did I spend some time in the exterior there - the different tunnels lead you into a kind of open air arena, filled with a giant, hollow concrete sphere. It's huge - it feels like it's inflating, and creates this beautiful weight to the open space. 

There's also a kind of corner to the building that must be a residence - there is an olive tree in the middle of a tiled courtyard, with small square seating areas embedded into each corner and rooms that span off the sides. A lot of the elements reminded me of Tomba Brion near Treviso, where repeating steps and symmetry inform one space to the next. After spending so much time thinking about Cretto di Burri on Saturday, it was nice to simply move through this space - it was surreal, close to home, and full of details, such as the wood on the doors and even the lighting design.  I really enjoyed just shooting the different forms and light as I moved around the spaces, and I could feel myself trying things out like they were sketches, framing things just to see what happens, and not trying to solve it or force it right away. 

Monday, 22 September, 2025

For a small town, you can lose a day really quickly. I feel like I’ve already settled into a nice speed here, I know my store and bar, and somehow five days just isn’t enough to see everything.

I set out on two self-determined ‘sculpture walks’ today - I haven’t been using a set map or list of all of the sculptures, I'm liking that I can roam around and find my own way, using the sculptures as landmarks. It honestly feel like I’m collecting Pokémon - every time I turn to another street, there’s more new works to see - then sometimes it's two or three all at once - and I feel like I need to come back all over again to catch it all in a different light.

The morning session quickly turned into the afternoon, and the forms were taking on really different feelings, with their own harsh shadows and layers building on each other. Some of these sculptures are just huge - at Comunee di Gibellina, you look across the pavement to 14 or so huge pieces, fanned out together - it’s not a single form, it’s rows of them, like an oversized group photo. The ambition of it all keeps getting me: it can be hard enough to pitch a single sculpture, let alone fourteen of them? Right next to another monumental project? What was happening here?!

Seeing all these works is motivating in a different way - there was so much trust in the sheer scale of things, from the Cretto through to this a stack that towers over the square. It feels like there is one artwork for every 10 people in town. I keep having these thoughts that swing from calculations and logistics, swapping from creative approaches to technical thoughts, and behind that, something is ticking away and making other connections, and I trust the words and thoughts I’m really feeling here will come out in the final work.

It’s really nice to just let my mind go, move through this kind of contained space, and follow the work around. Even the feeling of taking photos is new but so pleasing for me - it really does feel like sketching or when I write quick words and phrases, I take a few shots and then know when I’ve got ‘the one’, it’s just decided. I read the phrase ‘fait accompli’ months ago, and saw it in a subtitle last night, I’ve been waiting to see it fit somewhere. There it is.

Tuesday, 23 September, 2025

This morning was meant to be a sunrise trip out to Cretto di Burri, before a long drive down the Stair of Turks and the salt caves, and more sculpture walks in the afternoon. The hire car had a low tyre pressure warning on it, which is always fun to see in the dark at 5am when you’ve only just left the house - I decided it’s safer to go home and check it, rather than run a flat out in some field in the middle of Sicily. My camera roll now includes about 12 'is it flat?' shots of the same tyre.

It wasn't the start I wanted, but it moved into being a really nice day. I got up the hill and around the other side of Cretto di Burri, looking out over all of it, and one of the abandoned buildings up the back. It felt familiar and nice, but like there were still more details and streets to see. Parts of the flats felt just huge, standing next to them and looking across it, it’s all you can see. It makes me wonder what a film here would look like, how fun it would be to play with shots, perspectives, and moving across the work with different light and speeds to capture someone. 

Then it was onto Fondazione Orestiadi, which features a number of buildings housing contemporary works, with works by Emilio Isgrò and Alfonso Leto - these are the kind of works I get a pang of jealousy over, I wish I'd made them myself. Mimmo Paladino's 'Montagna di Sale' was also there, a set from the 1990 tragedy 'The Bride of Messina or the Enemy Brothers'. It's so devastating, these almost comical horse/ram forms embedded into a hill. It makes me think of when I learnt about Guernica in school, it was the first really large painting I can recall studying, and definitely began a love for works that use scale to convery emotions as something surreal.  'Montagna di Sale' felt like it was taking up all of this space and weight, like an invitation to climb and consider all of its shade and dimension. 

I got home and into another sculpture walk, which continues to blow my mind - some of these sculptures are in relatively mundane places, like an industrial park storage lot. It's a really nice way to wrap the day, finding works I've seen before, and completely new ones around the corner. 

The details are really starting to get me - how the materials have worn over many years, and where the fabrication is wearing through, and the contrast of these giant, enduring forms that are starting to show their cracks. I was thinking about how much I'm enjoying writing and collecting things with a bit more efficiency and intention. And finally, I’m also enjoying these dogs following me around. 

Wednesday, 24 September, 2025

It's the last morning in Gibellina, so that can only mean one thing - do a hot lap around town to catch anything I might have missed. Again, I swear new sculptures have turned up overnight. I got the big one - a huge carpark structure that looms over a small, outdoor gallery of postered photographs, as well as the Stella di Acciaio, which graces the entry of the town. I really wanted to get up into the carpark, but I'm not sure that's possible - or polite. I've been walking around town for four days, looking like someone from the future, so I'm going to keep it neat and stick to ground-level photographs. With that, I'm out, and on the road back to Palermo. 

I'm sad to leave town, but I feel a sense of relief that I know it now, and I'd happily come back to do it all again. I have so many shots of abandoned homes and tall studio doors, clearly part of me is fantasising about what it would be like to live or do a project here. Even the cavernous area under the parking structure feels like a beautiful place to show work - the concrete and curves create wonderful lines and lighting, with simple symmetry and cars cruising through every now and then. I've never seen a gallery like that. I'm really happy to even feel that moment again - I feel excited to start planning the next exhibition and how all of these impressions will come through. 

I eventually met Adry at the accommodation in Palermo, who (along with her fantastic nails) showed me where is good to eat in town. I only really have a full day in Palermo before I fly to London, so I'm going to do my best to take in the details I see as I wander around. My obsession with Italian concrete has also followed me further into Sicily, as I keep noticing these benches everywhere I go, as well as elaborate engraved and set typeforms.  And, like any good Australian overseas, I immediately run into another artist - Neryl Walker is an artist from Melbourne who spotted me on the street, and we make plans to get a drink later on. 

I find a small street that is full of metal workshops, and a cafe you can't miss - Officine Calderai - which is simply and beautifully designed to feature handmade oil curets, forged by the same metalworkers from the street. The location is a former workshop, and now a project conceived by Martinelli Venezia, with Giusi Giacalone and Enzo Venezia (these names are just, god, I love them). The cruets are small sculptures in their own right, and I buy a book that feels like a mix of informative dimensions and English artist Roids MSK's work. I set off at the right time, because I then met Ginevra who is living my alternate reality as an art restorer. She and her husband work out of their downstairs workshop or on-site, conserving aging pieces that need months of attention. It felt nice to just treat today as an easy one before an early flight, and what will be my last post and big old recap of the week that's been. 

Thursday, 25 September, 2025

I don't quite know where to start this final diary entry, but it feels right to pause and wrap it up right. This trip has been over a year in the making, and I'm incredibly thankful not only to call this work, but also to become one of the many talented artists who have completed The Jaunt. I'm ready for more of this!

This trip reminded me of many things I circle around, and know about myself and my practice. While my work is about the structures we use - language, buildings, time -  and how these contain and reveal a depth of experience and emotion, it demands something of me and my time to do it right. I need real space to collect, reflect and think, and then venture into creating 'the work'. I really love that The Jaunt has reminded me of this. I want to realise my concepts in photography, film, books, sculpture, and not just painted works. This is something I already know about myself, and prioritising this time is the next step for me. 

Going on this Jaunt trip ran many parallels to how I've been feeling about art as a career lately. My goals, and the goalposts, are constantly changing, but that's what also excites me so much. And when I not only remember it, but actively pursue it, I feel truly present and I especially feel like myself. I feel curious, resilient, brave, and on that edge of...well, I'm going to figure it out, because it can't just stop here. And I don't want it to. 

My life and work are one and the same, which can be overwhelming at times, but it's all the more reason to know myself, to question how I'm working, and what do I want it to become. As endless as that feeling can be, I feel lucky to be this way and to revisit these parts of myself. So once again - a very big thank you to Jeroen, The Jaunt, and Gibellina. I'm off to touch more concrete.