Wise Young Things by Asha Cluer
Wise Young Things is the work of mixed-medium artist Asha Cornelia Cluer and is the culmination of a 2024 Artist-in-Residence placement at Rockingham Arts Centre. It is an intergenerational storytelling film project designed to spread joy and celebrate the local community.
The work engages local young people aged 13 - 18 who are interested in the arts and filmmaking, along with senior citizens from the City of Rockingham's Autumn Centre. Through a series of storytelling workshops, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) senior citizens have been facilitated to share memories from their childhoods with our young participants. The focus for storytelling is on immigration journeys, language, culture, friendship, family, place, and changing technology. Audio of these stories is recorded. This is followed by performance workshops in which the young participants use the audio recordings as the soundtrack to create nuanced lip-sync performances which pay attention to characterisation and physicality. These performances are filmed, resulting in a moving image in which you see a young person embody and inhabit the voice of an older member of the community.
This anthology of short films is available in the gallery for audiences to walk through and engage with as they please. You can choose to spend all day with our stories, or just a few minutes. Either way, you will come to understand the vibrancy and diversity of people and their experiences who make up the fabric of the Rockingham community. This is Wise Young Things.
Asha Cornelia Cluer, Place and Purpose, 2024, digital photography collage. Photo courtesy the artist.
About the artist
Asha Cornelia Cluer is a multilingual mixed-medium artist and youth arts facilitator who creates culturally diverse and linguistically-focussed work. She grew up in Walyalup Fremantle and her practice spans live and recorded arts.
As a writer, her play Flamenco Vampires and Outlaw Space Cowboys, written in English and Spanish, was produced by We Are Quiet Roar (Naarm) in 2021. Her next multilingual play, A Magical Guide to Fighting Fascism, is currently in development supported by the Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries. In 2023, she co-facilitated Ngalaka Daa 2023 for Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company and WA Youth Theatre Company (dir. Bobbi Henry), performed entirely in Noongar language (Whadjuk dialect) by a company of young performers.
She regularly facilitates theatre and screen projects in primary and secondary schools across Western Australia for Australian Theatre for Young People, Black Swan State Theatre Company, WA Youth Theatre Company, Barking Gecko Theatre Company and Emergent Academy (Cert. IV and Diploma courses). She was awarded the UWA Graduates Association Prize in Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics and Psychology (Level 1) for her work in linguistics during her undergraduate degree (BA Political Science). She trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK (MA Acting) and her acting career includes numerous West End and UK number one touring credits.