PERTH artist Amy Perejuan-Capone was on a three-month artist residency in Greenland when inspiration struck for her City of Perth Winter Arts Season temporary public art work commission, One Word for Snow.
“It was dark and cold and I spent a lot of time inside thinking about snow,” Perejuan-Capone said.
“That gave me this idea that I was soon going back to a 40-degree Perth with no snow; it was while looking at icebergs that I decided I would like to bring snow to Perth and nutted out a way to do that.
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READ NOW“For a lot of people in Perth snow is almost like a mythological thing, where they have this picture of it in their head, but the reality doesn’t quite match up to imagination.
“I have had the experience of stepping on the wrong side of the path and falling waist-deep into snow.”
Perejuan-Capone has found various locations around the Perth CBD to delight people with her portable snow machine, beginning earlier this month with her first snow off the PICA tower at Perth Cultural Centre.
More snow flurries are planned until July 9, with locations, dates and times available at www.onewordforsnow.org.
“The snow locations are all in flux with the unpredictable nature of the actual weather, so I’ve just been directing everyone to the website,” she said.
“It has a seven-day forecast and there’s a radar system on the website that gives away approximate locations with timestamps a few days prior to snow day.
“I wanted to recreate the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) website, which is a really useful tool, so people could use it in the same way.”
Perejuan-Capone said One Word for Snow played on the idea there were 50 words for snow in Inuit languages, with a sneaky little reference to Kate Bush.
She said the impoverished exposure to snow in Perth resulted in Australians having only one word for it and defined the lack of diversity for the concept of snow.
“I want people to recognise that the fundamental idea of snow in Perth is absurd and ironic,” she said.
“And I want them to enjoy this and to respect the natural environment they’re in.
“Then that links to a serious message about climate change and how things like snow and ice are becoming more precarious and unpredictable and disappearing.”