Chantilly Studio Artist Residency

I acknowledge Chantilly Studio Inc. for the opportunity to work in their studio space, providing me with a desk that has the most exciting view of the Melbourne skyline from Flinders Street Station and Federation Square, across the Yarra River to the Botanical Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance. I have been selected to take up residency for three months to complete a project. I will work on a writing a book that I have been maturing for some time, which will involve weaving my appreciation of food, tradition and place with time spent in the Sicilian countryside. When it comes to the culture of food, I have come to understand that place is a vital ingredient.

I relish the opportunity to work in a space shared with creative others. It reminds me that our creativity is not only to be expressed, but it’s a necessary part of the culture that is constantly being woven by our being here.

Catching glimpses of the Yarra River, Birrarrung Marr, tells me that this is the place where the people of the Kulin Nation walked, I glean their footsteps in the contemporary descendants that I have had the privilege to meet, and in those that I haven’t.

Finally, as I cross Flinders Street Station, walk along Swanston Street and enter the Nicholas Building, I’m also reminded that the city of Melbourne is the place where parents and grandparents and great great grandparents in successive migrational waves resettled from different parts of the globe, and left a mark.

So in this spirit, I take up the Autumn artist residency at the Chantilly Studio.

Silvana Tuccio, March 2017 

At dusk, looking out from my desk at the Chantilly Studio, Melbourne.

View from Chntilly Studio, Melbourne.