Latitudes – 151ºE

Exploring the need to travel and the formation of identity as an artefact of this process. Focusing on themes of distance, travel, and journeys, this film features prose by Claire Cao, video work by Gillian Kayrooz and score by BLESSED.

Latitudes weaves together nine artistic commissions from A.Girl, BLESSED, Claire Cao, Eda Gunaydin, Gillian Kayrooz, Mo Aung, Nerdie (1300), Sela Vai, and Serwah Attafuah in three dynamic short films that explore themes of audibility, distance and perspective. 151ºE is the second video in the series.

We walk and we walk till we see green slopes jutting into marble steps, a Kuanyin temple flanked by two stone lions. Sewage water bubbles under the Canley train bridge into Cabra and Fairfield, winding towards a horizon of fibro houses.

‘Mrs Thompson says the creek's named after an orphanage that used to be here,’ Mei tells me. ‘Back in the olden days, when little kids got bitten by Redbacks and died on the banks.’

‘This place is full of ghosts.’

‘Nah as if,’ I say. ‘I've never even seen a Redback.’

I didn't believe in ghosts, but I knew all about death: cats and possums laid out on the main roads, their guts trailing against the tar. Tommy Le from down the street who OD'd first year uni. The faded memory of Gong Gong swaddled in clove-and-menthol scented blankets; my hand crushed in the icy clamp of his. He was so far away from home, already a sepia photograph, but his strength had been surprising.