November 2025: This summer, Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre presents Loom of the Land, an exhibition by Australian photographer Brad Rimmer, as part of Perth Festival. Rimmer specialises in long-term projects of portraiture, landscape and social documentation, examining the essence of rural Australia and the emotional impact of the environment on people.

Loom of the Land brings together three interconnected bodies of work in Rimmer’s Wheatbelt trilogy in a major exhibition for the first time. Silence (2009), Nature Boy (2019), and Nowhere Near (2023), have been created over two decades during Rimmer’s return journeys to the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, the landscape of his youth. Recurring themes weave through works like threads – silence, loss, resilience, and the fragile endurance of community, evoking how personal memory and collective history are woven through the land itself.

Growing up in a small town, Rimmer sensed the unspoken weight of what goes unsaid; stories left untold, rumours about things that happened behind closed doors, and a collective silence that shaped daily life. These formative experiences underpin much of his work, infusing his images with a sense of memory, loss, and the quiet endurance of community. At the same time, Rimmer witnessed the changing face of rural life. He reflects on a time in the Wheatbelt when “populations were declining; young people were leaving; small farms were being bought up by larger, corporate enterprises.” Personal and reflective, the images explore the pull between staying and leaving, and the way place continues to shape identity long after departure.

For the first time, Rimmer’s work expands beyond the photographic. Two new music performances were commissioned and filmed to accompany the images.

“This exhibition is an opportunity to move into something more cinematic, using image and music together to reach a deeper emotional level,” Rimmer explains.

Music has always been an important part of his photographic process, as Rimmer recalls “time spent driving and listening, often without taking a single picture, became a meditative and essential part of the process.”

“For Loom of the Land, I invited singer/songwriter Emily Barker and composer Mark Holdsworth to create works in response to my images. Each chose a hall from Nowhere Near as their performance space, Emily in North Baandee Hall and Mark in Bencubbin Hall. The atmosphere
of those halls became integral to their performances, which were filmed and recorded, creating an immersive dialogue between image, place, and sound.”

Curator and Collections Lead at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre, Abigail Moncrieff, reflects on the personal and collective resonance of Rimmer’s work for Western Australians, noting its ability to evoke both nostalgia and new perspectives.

“Brad’s photographs capture the Wheatbelt’s landscapes and communities with sensitivity and depth. He brings a cinematic attention to his subjects and reveals people and places that might otherwise go unnoticed.

“For so many of us in Western Australia, or Australia, there’s a deep connection to the Wheatbelt, whether it’s through family, friends, or shared stories. That’s what makes Loom of the Land so special, it speaks to those connections, and to the enduring significance of regional life for all Western Australians,” observes Moncrieff.

The exhibition will bring together one hundred and twenty-five works from across the three photographic series, as well as featuring the two performance videos.

Brad Rimmer ‘Loom of the Land’ is open at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre from Saturday 7 February to Sunday 19 April, open daily from 10AM to 5PM. Presented by Perth Festival and Walyalup Fremantle Art Centre.

Brad Rimmer is represented by Art Collective WA.

For more information visit https://wfac.org.au/whats-on/post/perth-festival-2026-brad-rimmerloom-of-the-land/

ENDS

For information, interviews & images:
Alice Hamilton
Detail Marketing Communications
alice@detail.com.au
0415 576 57