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
"Over time, I began to return to my cultural roots and my writing evolved to be a way to explore and critically examine my immediate social realities..."
Garick had always been a shy and introverted kid. It wasn't until he got a bit older that he realised there was a name for what he was experiencing.
After 21 days on a boat, Kaliyugan Pathmanathan finally saw landmass before he was put away in immigration detention for 17 months. He reflects on the isolation he felt in the detention centres, including time on Christmas Island, and what it was like to finally have his freedom back.
"Because my family is so dynamic and so different, and also growing up in a different country and then coming somewhere else as well, those two differing kind of like ideas of womanhood, they shaped the way that I view womanhood to be gentle but not submissive."