View from the Magpies Nest by Breaksea and the Toodyay Community Resource Centre

View from the Magpie’s Nest was a community-based singing, storytelling and interdisciplinary project that explored identity and the concept of home inspired by the metaphor of the magpie’s nest. An experienced and talented collection of artists including Matt Ward, Rachael Colmer, Pia Harris, Tim Dunn and Toodyay locals Emma Pettemerides and Despina Weston, ran open community workshops to develop a new performance work through storytelling, singing, movement and visual arts. 

The community workshops ran across four weekends between October 2021 and March 2022 and resulted in a series of pop-up performance program and visual arts installation around Toodyay, produced by Breaksea and the Toodyay Community Resource Centre. 

The highlight was professional artists working with the local youth choir, who through the project, had the opportunity to perform for their local community on numerous occasions. Hundreds of local community members responded to the project by attending, performing and sharing in creativity, music and performance in a public and open way.