A historic Fremantle hotel, largely dormant for decades, is currently hosting a unique art exhibition as part of the Fremantle Biennale's closing weekend. The former P&O hotel, a 19th-century landmark, has been transformed by over 40 artists into a maze of installations and performances titled "Room Service." This event offers the public a rare opportunity to explore a building steeped in history, reimagined through contemporary artistic expression.
Key Takeaways
- Fremantle's historic P&O hotel, built around 1870, is now open to the public for the first time in decades.
- Over 40 artists have created site-specific installations and performances for the "Room Service" exhibition.
- The event is part of the Fremantle Biennale's closing weekend, running from November 29-30.
- The exhibition explores the building's past as a sailors' haunt and its colonial legacy.
- Property owners are encouraged to open unused spaces for artistic activation.
A Glimpse into the Past: The P&O Hotel Reimagined
The P&O hotel, located on Fremantle's High Street, was originally constructed around 1870 and saw significant renovations during the gold-rush era. For nearly a century, it served as a bustling hub for wharfies and crewmen, housing 31 rooms and a lively bar known as the Cockpit. Despite its prominent location and rich history, the building has remained largely inaccessible for decades, its upper floors a forgotten relic.
This weekend marks a significant shift. "Room Service" allows visitors to step inside this architectural time capsule. Tall stained glass windows, dark timber moldings, and an iron-framed balcony overlooking the street evoke a cinematic sense of history, now interwoven with modern art.
"I don’t think people realise how much latent creative output becomes possible when property owners have the will and vision to back a simple idea," stated musician Danielle Caruana, also known as Mama Kin, who co-curated "Room Service" with Tom Mùller. "It activates our greatest asset of all, which is our ideas."
Historic Landmark
- Built: Circa 1870
- Renovated: During the gold-rush era
- Original Use: Hotel for sailors and wharfies
- Rooms: 31
- Famous Feature: The "Cockpit" bar
Artists Respond to a Rich History
For the past three weeks, artists have occupied the hotel's upper floors, each creating works that respond to the building's layered past. The themes range from maritime history and colonial legacies to personal reflections and future dystopias.
Composer Iain Grandage and cellist Mel Robinson, for example, have crafted a cello duet inspired by the hotel's maritime past. Their work reinterprets the 19th-century sailor song "Little Fish," focusing on themes of loneliness and longing. A pre-recorded soundtrack of waves and water sounds accompanies their live performance, creating an immersive "oceanic sound installation."
Addressing Colonial Legacies
The hotel's proximity to the Round House, a former colonial prison, deeply influenced Whadjuk Balladong and Wilman Noongar artist Zali Morgan. Her installation, featuring watercolours on recycled brown paper, confronts the site's colonial history. Morgan's "gestural watercolour marks" express the "heaviness of the site," transforming the room into a quiet space for reflection on place and past injustices. Many Aboriginal men were held at the Round House before being sent to a labor camp on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island) in the 19th century.
The Round House
The Round House, a few minutes' walk from the P&O hotel, was the Swan River Colony's first prison. It played a significant role in the colonial history of Western Australia, particularly in the incarceration and forced labor of Aboriginal people.
Diverse Artistic Expressions
Other artists have explored different facets of the hotel's narrative. Ellen Broadhurst's work, "The Golem of Room 15," features animated faces drawn from the hotel's past inhabitants—sailors, nurses, bellboys, and a beloved landlady. These rotoscoped faces are projected over a large papier-mache head, creating a ghostly chorus that, according to Broadhurst, represents "everyone who’s ever been in this room."
Guy Louden's installation, "Wet End," presents a playable climate dystopia. This jetski game is set in a future Fremantle submerged by rising seas. The game's "trashy, oversaturated" aesthetic and explicit dialogue—a dolphin declaring "we’re totally fucked" and a sea god stating "capitalism is cancer"—critique contemporary attitudes towards climate change and unchecked growth.
Imagining Pre-Colonial Fremantle
Architect Nic Brunsdon offers a contrasting vision. He has stripped a room back to imagine the landscape that existed before the hotel was built. Collaborating with a natural-dye researcher, a scent artist, a sculptor, and a furniture maker, Brunsdon created a sensory refuge. Marri timber, hand-carved sandstone, bush aromas, and vast rust-colored curtains aim to transport visitors to an imagined pre-colonial Fremantle. The intention is to build a "meditative little pause space."
Key Collaborations
- Iain Grandage & Mel Robinson: Cello duet inspired by maritime history.
- Zali Morgan: Watercolour installation addressing colonial legacy.
- Ellen Broadhurst: Animated faces of past hotel occupants.
- Guy Louden: Climate dystopia jetski game.
- Nic Brunsdon: Sensory installation evoking pre-colonial landscape.
- Danielle Caruana & Luna Laure: Sound-led installation exploring ritual of release.
The Power of Unused Spaces
The "Room Service" exhibition highlights the potential of repurposing empty historical buildings for cultural events. Danielle Caruana and her collaborators, who formed the "Culture Club," initially met in the P&O hotel's ground floor rooms, questioning why such a central and characterful site remained unused. Their vision led to this biennale event.
The building's current owners, Nic Trimboli and Adrian Fini, who are behind successful Fremantle hospitality ventures like Little Creatures and Bread in Common, offered the venue for the biennale. While they plan to revive the P&O as a hotel in the future, for now, its upper floors are a vibrant artistic canvas.
Caruana emphasizes the transformative power of these initiatives. "Empty spaces are a vacuum," she reflected. "They create these kind of gaps in continuity. They create gaps in an experience of connectivity." She hopes more property owners will recognize the opportunity in inviting artists into these spaces, noting that the shift can be remarkably simple. "It doesn’t take much to say yes."
The "Room Service" exhibition runs only on November 29 and 30 at the P&O hotel, 25 High Street, Fremantle, as a concluding highlight of the Fremantle Biennale.