Arts/biennale2021/commonwealth.html
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The Commonwealth of New Bayswater
Jessee Lee Johns:
The small and ephemeral nation, a collection of territories including a cultural capital in the east (The Inverted Museum of History) to the industrial heartland in the west (the state-run Public Works and Embassy), and its commercial centre (in the centre), will be offering single entry tourist visas to travellers from all over the world. Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to experience all this quasi-functional state has to offer, from live performances by international acts, culture, public toilets, views of bridges and carparks, free potable water and more. Grab your passport, lower your expectations and embark on a 100% genuine overseas journey. Discover one of the world’s most accessible tourist destinations!
The Tavern
The Post Office
Motor Inn Room One (the only one)
Signpost at the Embassy (not quite visible at the back)
Postbox at the Embassy (dimly visible at the back)
The next seven images show the 2021 Commonweath buildings in progress, in October: the Commonwealth of New Bayswater (on the [[../../../jetties/index.html#heavyliftjetty|heavy lift jetty]] on the river on Beach Street Fremantle) - with a motor inn (with one room), a tavern, a (separate) embassy (behind the Naval Store), and live performances, and associated with the [[../../../arts/biennale2021/inverted.html|Inverted Museum of History]] (near Blackwall Reach). See Jessee's own website for much more.
The previous territory of the Commonwealth of New Bayswater, in 2019 (during the second Fremantle Biennale), was on the Fremantle South Mole. The photo below is from the newbayswater.com website. See the FSN page for a comprehensive set of photos by Deanna Shanahan. See also my page for Dago Bay for the 'private beach' available to residents of the South Mole Resort.
The very first Commonwealth of New Bayswater was inhabited, as he writes, by Jessee Lee Johns, and opened its embassy in 2017, in the cellar under Michael Finn's Princess Chambers building. Again, the photo is from the newbayswater.com website:
References and Links
There is no homepage on the newbayswater.com website but there are various pages accessible in November 2021:
wikitravel.newbayswater.com (source of the two archival photos above)
embassy.newbayswater.com (I bought a day-time visa for 11 November, but neither the Embassy nor Downtown were open 10-5 as advertised. I went back the next day when they were - more or less.)
See also: Inverted Museum of History.
Fremantle Shipping News article on the South Mole Resort (2019), with a 'podcast' interview between Michael Barker and Jessee Lee Johns, and a large number of photographs of the resort and of other work by JLJ.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on Remembrance Day, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/arts/biennale2021/commonwealth.html (it was last updated on 29 October, 2023). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.