'dalison' by ian strange and trevor powers

‘dalison’ by ian strange & trevor powers is an 18-minute film accompanied by a photographic series

australian artist ian strange and american musician and producer trevor powers come together for a new 18-minute film and photographic series called ‘dalison’. a eulogy for a soon-to-be-demolished residence and the community it was once part of, the project sees an isolated hold-out home brought to life through an architectural intervention, a large-scale light and sound installation, and a performance.

responding to the recent history of wattleup, a former suburb slowly being erased by state government redevelopment, ‘dalison’ forms part of strange’s ongoing global body of work: building large-scale architectural interventions with communities and exploring ideas of ‘home’ and social displacement worldwide. 20 dalison avenue and one other home are the only two remaining in the old township. the former was sold to the western australian land authority in 2020 and awaits demolition early this year.

image © matsu photography

combining strange’s large led lightwork with trevor’s poetic sound performance

strange’s durational light installation, choreographed to powers’ original 18-minute composition of poetic and experimental sound, transforms the empty residence of 20 dalison avenue using a stadium-sized LED video screen and programmed theatre lighting. the artist first saw the home in 2015, but only conceptualized ‘dalison’ in early 2021. he secured a six-week lease to the property, and with a team of construction, film, production, and lighting specialists, built the large-scale LED video screen (8m high x 23.5m wide) to bring the work to life — all installed, documented, and bumped out in a single week.

at once melancholic and euphoric, the performance was documented by strange and his collaborators over a period of three nights. the resulting film and photographic works — a surviving record of this temporary installation — will be shown in a series of upcoming exhibitions and screenings worldwide.

image © ian strange

‘the idea of the project was to build this large-scale screen that would allow us to cut the house out of the landscape with light, to experience the home in shifting states of visibility, either silhouetted, isolated in darkness, or revealed in its vast, empty context,’ strange says. ‘early on, I started to think about this project as a musical collaboration and I thought trevor was the perfect person to score that experience.’

powers (see more here) created the composition from isolation on the other side of the world, sourcing inspiration from strange’s research into 20 dalison and his home in idaho. ‘I wanted the music to sound like it was dug up in a field, like something that was discovered, covered in dirt, that it had some kind of past life or maybe multiple past lives,’ powers explains. ‘to me, Ian’s idea felt almost like an anti-concert. with a concert, obviously, there are people, there’s movement — but doing that, through a different lens, on a house that carries so much weight as an icon, that was interesting to me.’

image © ian strange

constantly seeking new and universal meanings of a ‘home’

in its scale, ‘dalison’ is one of ian strange’s most ambitious works and is his first time exploring the ‘hold-out’ home phenomenon. ‘in my work, I’m interested in universal and shared connections to the image of the home. these are places we tend to project with a sense of stability but are often more vulnerable and temporal than we would like to think. this is especially true in the experience of hold-out homeowners like those of 20 dalison.’

‘dalison’ ends the artist’s time back in australia before he returns to the US, gearing up for the upcoming release of his debut monograph ‘disturbed home’ with damiani, a major work at US FotoFocus biennial, and the release of a major dance film with contemporary dance company chunky move.

image © ian strange