Shipwreck Coastline - Busselton Heritage Festival

27 September – 15 October 2025 | Bond Store Gallery

Western Australia is known as the Shipwreck Coastline. Hundreds of sails, masts and hulks lie at the bottom of the ocean becoming a playground for soft corals and sea creatures. Fish circle the bones of those lost at sea, swimming into the crevices and cracks of broken hulls. The remains of these wrecks are dug up by marine archaeologists, ogled by recreational divers, or plundered by treasure seekers. Fragments and glimpses of this maritime history fills our museums, the Georgette bell in Augusta Museum is silent behind glass, the Batavia skeletons sprawl beside replica coins and pottery shards in the WA Museum.

A ship was a whole world, travelling long distances across oceans, like the Dutch navigations to find spice and trade in the East Indies. Catching the ‘Roaring Forties’ winds up the West Coast of Australia to Indonesia often resulted in fatal mistakes on a sharp reef. The French expeditions to document, observe and map have left us a nomenclature to be admired, in the wake of zoologist and anthropologist, Francois Peron. Bestowed with names along our coast such as Geographe and Naturaliste we are also left wondering, what happened to Thomas Timothee Vasse, said to have wrecked in an exploratory longboat on the shores near Wonnerup, detailed by Milius in his journals.

Shipwreck Coastlines is an exhibition at the Old Courthouse in the Bond Store, Busselton from 18 October – 16 November, featuring the work of artists such as Susie Vickery who explores the grim tale of the Batavia wreck through its main protagonists, and Jill Paynter OMeehan who creates stunning underwater universes, accompanied by archival work - leading us to a contemporary response to these salty stories.

The exhibition is part of the Southwest Heritage Festival running during October and November across the district, which invites you to immerse in the theme of Water.