Image credit: Bo Wong

Living and working from her home studio nestled among forested wetland on Menang–Bibbulmun Country, emerging curator and self-taught artist Saira Ellen K. Spencer’s practice is deeply rooted in the landscapes of Western Australia’s Great Southern.

Formerly a tattoo artist in Perth, Spencer shifted to a fine arts practice after relocating to Kwoorabup in 2020, developing a contemplative body of work marked by biophilic textures, anthropomorphic forms, and an ongoing investigation into water, transformation and the parallels between human experience and the natural world. 

For the 2025 Regional Arts Triennial, Spencer brings this lens to Fertile Ground, a group exhibition that asks the question: What happens when a community imagines a future with fire that is not ruled by fear?

Coming from Perth, Spencer had never experienced the rhythms and realities of bushfire seasons in quite the same way as she did after moving to the Great Southern. “In the city, I’d never been so directly exposed to bushfires or prescribed burning,” she says. “But it’s a reality we have to consider here every summer.”

That reality sharpened during the 2022 bushfires, which tore through the region. Spencer wasn’t directly in the fire zone, but the event changed the way she understood her community, not only through the immediate, on-the-ground solidarity but also through the heated debates that circulated online. Those conversations revealed just how emotionally charged and politically complex fire management was, and how deeply people cared about the future of the land they live upon.

“There was this stark difference between people arguing online and then people coming together to help,” she says. “It got me thinking about what would happen if we took positive community interaction and applied it to this problem.”

From that observation grew a curatorial premise rooted in shared values rather than entrenched positions. “With this exhibition, I wanted to show that a lot of us really do care about the same things,” Spencer reflects.

A shift from fire management to collective grief

As the project developed, Spencer’s thinking broadened from environmental management to those emotional and psychological responses. “I tried to talk to a lot of people – activists and environmentalists and professional firefighters and people who had been affected by bushfire,” she explains. Through these conversations, she began to recognise a quieter, more pervasive force underpinning community tensions.

“It occurred to me that perhaps at the root of it all… is that element of grief, an experience of either past or potential losses.”

She gained insight that grief shapes not only how we remember bushfire, but how we anticipate it. “I started researching the psychology and anthropology of how communities deal with collective experiences of loss,” she says. “Understanding the issue from a holistic perspective has been really valuable for me.”

A cultural palimpsest

During her research, Spencer encountered a concept that helped articulate the complexity of bushfire-related discourse: the cultural palimpsest.

“I came across an academic paper that talked about cultural palimpsest, and it just really struck a chord with me,” she says. The term describes a process in which older understandings remain faintly visible beneath newer ones, subtly shaping how they emerge.

“It made sense… maybe we need to go through a similar process in order to get to that point where we can see common ground… and fertile ground.”

The concept resonates deeply with Spencer’s broader practice, where growth and decay co-exist. In Fertile Ground, it became a tool for imagining futures that are neither naïve nor fatalistic but grounded in the layered histories that the future can grow from.

Image credits: 1. Rachel Falls Williams (Denmark WA), Gathered together (in progress). Ceramic vessels made with Karri loam, red clay and handmade wood ash glaze | 2. Freya Joy Parre, Being With Fire (in process) | 3. Helen Seiver, Let’s Talk! (detail)

Curating as connection and creative nourishment

Though Spencer describes herself as “not a social creative,” curating the exhibition has enriched her practice in unexpected ways.

“My practice is very much one of solitude,” she says. “So, it’s been a really great experience for me. It’s fed me creatively as an artist to get this community and connection.”

Fertile Ground brings together a mix of practitioners from across the Great Southern and South West, each offering a distinct relationship with fire, land and regeneration.

The exhibition features works from Kaneang Goreng woman Ruth Maddren, Helen Seiver, Rachel Falls Williams, Peter Hill and Freya Joy Parre as well as a number of bold new collaborations: painter Carly Le Cerf working alongside sound artist Jean-Michel Maujean; the newly formed CYCAD Artist Collective; and the creative partnership of Jo Wassell and Samala Ghosh.

“At least four of the artists have lived through bushfires,” Spencer notes. “Peter Hill has been a practicing artist for decades, but he’s also been a very active volunteer and senior member with the Northcliffe/Meerup fire brigade for over 20 years.”

The ambition of the artists has also been a creative catalyst for Spencer. “They’ve pushed me to be a better artist. These people are thinking big and thinking bravely, so I need to keep up with that.”

Making space for conversation

At its heart, Fertile Ground is less about offering solutions and more about enabling dialogue.

“I’m passionate about art’s capacity to affect positive change and bring up those really hard conversations. Not to propose answers, but to make it feel safe to talk about things,” Spencer says.

Approaching a topic as charged and painful as bushfire is never easy, but Spencer is clear about what drives her. “Art is activism and advocacy for me. Sticking your neck out is tricky… but I believe that’s what we’re supposed to do as artists.”

Radical Futures: Fertile Ground opens at Albany Town Hall from 12 December 2025 – 17 January 2026 with free artist talks on Saturday 13 December and 10 January. Visit albany.wa.gov.au for more information.

Fertile Ground is presented by Denmark Arts and the City of Albany. The WA Regional Arts Triennial 3: Radical Futures is funded with support from the WA Government. It is coordinated by Southern Forest Arts with support from ART ON THE MOVE through the Regional Exhibition Touring Boost. Project partners include John Curtin Gallery, Regional Arts WA, GalleriesWest and Kimberley Arts Network.