Mikaela Castledine
Backstories 2021 is a multi-sited storytelling festival located in suburbs of across Perth and regional Western Australia.
Backstories is a multi-sited storytelling festival located in backyards across Perth and regional Western Australia. In 2021, Backstories featured locations in Margaret River, South Fremantle, Midland, Quinns Rocks and more.
Backstories 2021 was made possible with funding from Lotterywest, Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and the Centre for Stories Founders Circle.
This story was collected at our Gooseberry Hill backyard. It features Mikaela Castledine as she sympathises with her friends in the eastern states who, last year, had to evacuate their homes due to devastating bushfires. Mikaela ruminates on the things she would take were she having to evacuate her home, and connects this to her mother’s experience of having to evacuate her home in Burma on Christmas Day, 1941.
OTHER STORIES
Feelings of isolation during the pandemic reminded Carolina of her earlier days settling in a new country, and how she longed for that sense of community.
Born in Sri Lanka, Shenali grew up in the suburbs of Gosnells and Southern River, and remembers a time when her life in Australia stretched only as far as the Carousel Shopping Centre and Gosnells Library.
"Love, I realised, is a state of being that emerges from a practise. You develop love through intimacy, truth-telling and truth-listening, custodianship, and the simple act of being together: hiking, fishing, birdwatching, camping, breathing, smelling, touching, eating Country."
In Love and Its Many Faces, Joseph tells of growing up in Northbridge in the 80s, love and loss.