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Temple
In November 2023, the Commonwealth of New Bayswater opened a Temple devoted to the Glorious Beings of Small Favours.
Jessee Lee Johns:
The Commonwealth of New Bayswater will once again be throwing its borders open for the duration of the Fremantle Biennale. The tiny state has decided it would be a good idea to get a state religion going. At the ocean edge, a temple devoted to the glorious beings of small favours will be established.
In an attempt to curry favour with the Commonwealth’s neighbours in the region, applications for small favours submitted to the glorious beings, will be accepted from visitors of any nationality. Applications can be found, completed, and lodged during the Biennale.
Not in the market for a small favour? There is more!
Visitors are also invited to the temple to witness nightly devotions, as international performers pay homage to the glorious beings as the sun slinks over the horizon.
The Commonwealth of New Bayswater’s Embassy (situated between a limestone wall and the Naval Store, Fremantle) will also be hosting a series of exclusive and elusive concerts in the park. Tickets are coming soon.
OPENING DAY
Five photos courtesy of Roel Loopers
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEINGS OF LETTERBOX REPAIRS
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THE DAY BEFORE OPENING DAY
All remaining photos by GG
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The van, milk crates and toolbox are not part of the installation.
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A TEMPLE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEINGS OF SMALL FAVOURS—the inscription in 'stone' over the door.
DURING THE INSTALLATION
Sunday 5 November
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEING OF MAKING DIFFICULT BUT RELATIVELY INCONSEQUENTIAL DECISIONS
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEING OF PEGBOARD COMPOSITION
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEING OF FREE BATHS
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEINGS OF CUPS OF TEA
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEING OF BLACK SILICONE
WORK IN PROGRESS
In the week before opening
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Jessee building a small workroom on the western side of the temple. During the period of the installation, he allowed a homeless man who apparently lives in that area to sleep in it.
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The sign – which will go in that righthand corner – reads A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEING OF MAKING DIFFICULT BUT RELATIVELY INCONSEQUENTIAL DECISIONS
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WORK IN DEGRESS
In the week after closing
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A SHRINE DEVOTED TO THE GLORIOUS BEING OF HOT MEALS AND DISPOSING OF SENTIMENTAL ITEMS, i.e. a fireplace
Jessee built a small workroom on the western side of the temple, and allowed a homeless man who apparently lives in that area to sleep in it. Even though the installation is almost gone, you may still be able to make him out in the photograph above, kipping under the wind screen in the left background.
The last remnant of the installation, Monday 27 November.
A bath at the Temple devoted to the Glorious Beings of Small Favours
A free bath and an ocean plunge!
Join the Commonwealth of New Bayswater Temple devotees in a bath and morning ocean ritual each Friday of the Fremantle Biennale. Head down to the Temple from 7am – 7.30am to lodge your application with the glorious beings of free baths.
The free baths will begin from 7.30am, with devotees plunging themselves into the water at Bathers Beach (an Australian beach adjacent to the temple).
With your morning ablutions complete, final offerings can be made to the glorious beings, in an act of cooking and disposing of sentimental items. A ceremonial brew will then be prepared and shared outside the temple for all.*
7am Fri 10 & Fri 17 Nov
- Bring a piece of wood to burn, and a cup to drink from for the tea ceremony.
The illustration on this poster refers to one of the concrete cylinders – in the water off Bathers Beach nearby – on which the guns of the Arthurs Battery were mounted in 1906. When the gun emplacement was removed (apparently in 1943) the concrete mounts were simply dumped in the sea. Jessee has imagined a large billy of tea brewing on it, with a mug ready to drink that from.
Stephen Pollock, 'Holy Land', Fremantle Herald Saturday 11 November 2023:
The Commonwealth of New Bayswater has transcended its humble roots and is reaching for the “Glorious Being” in this year’s Fremantle Biennial.
For those not familiar with the Commonwealth, it’s a faux fiefdom of ramshackle buildings on South Mole, just off Bathers Beach, created by artist Jessee Lee Johns.
He started work on it six [eight!] years ago, creating an embassy, then added a tourist economy with accomodation, general store and bar/restaurant, and for the previous Biennial tacked on a postal service, department of public works, museum and art gallery.
But Johns was spending too much time tinkering with the Commonwealth bar and his tiny municipality needed some spirituality, so this year he’s built a temple.
“It’s ‘A Temple Devoted To The Glorious Beings Of Small Favours’”, he says. “I guess I started to worry about the soul of New Bayswater and thought it was time to create the department of Spiritual Welfare to allow the nation to grow and define itself beyond basic services.
“If the temple and the state religion of New Bayswater has a philosophy, I think it’s something like imbuing mundane things and simple acts of kindness with a certain weight, attached to them by their proximity to the Glorious Beings.
“Creating ritual and significance in little things, it maybe makes it easier for me to be grateful for them.”
There will be “devotional performances” at 7pm today (Saturday November 11) and tomorrow, and then at 5am from Thursday to Sunday next week.
“It will be interesting to see how that develops over the next couple weeks,” Johns says. “Who wanders by, who has come specifically to see them, if anyone comes at all, or if it’s just me and the performers, making a noise solely for the benefit of the Glorious Beings.”
So is the Commonwealth a wide-ranging satire on immigration, unaffordable rents, lack of housing, the tiny home movement, the nanny state and now religion? Or is it just a bit of a giggle?
“I think it holds within it humorous pokes at Australian politics and culture, but that might just be a by-product of the fact that I’m not that clever, and it’s hard to build a country,” Johns says. “I wouldn’t say it’s a satire on religion. I think it could be more accurately described as an attempt to model a state religion that confers real benefits upon those who engage with it. “And a way to think about government services that might exist outside of an economic rationalism that feels in this day as the only way we are able to think about such things. “I think what I end up making is something like a children’s drawing of a country – naive, missing most of the detail, and in that there is certainly plenty of humour to be found.”
Johns has been planning the temple for the past 18 months, but only had 30 days to build it on South Mole. He sourced materials from here, there and everywhere including “bits” he found on the side of the road, rubber from a water treatment facility in Bussleton, old materials he used on previous Commonwealth buildings and even water from nearby rock pools.
“I thought it might have been a bit much to take the sand off the beach,” he says. “People started bringing things as I was building, including a wonderful round piece of toughened glass (thank you). I got some branches after the City of Fremantle did some pruning nearby, before they sent out the chipper.”
Johns says one of the highlights of the temple is meeting random folk who wonder what the hell he is doing. “I’ve made a few friends there, people who stop by to check on progress and have a chat,” he says. “That dimension of the work is really interesting to me. Before the temple was really much of a building at all, it was already functioning as a social space and bringing people together. A huge proportion of the people that have come by the temple don’t know anything about the Biennale, and just encounter me, building a temple at the edge of Bathers Beach.”
References and Links
See the www.temple.newbayswater.com website for information (when available).
See also The Commonwealth of New Bayswater, 2021.
Page for the Commonwealth on the Biennale website.
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 28 October, 2023 and hosted at freotopia.org/arts/artists/johns/temple.html (it was last updated on 27 November, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.