Commissioned by Annika Kristensen at Perth Festival, A Field Guide for Stargazing is a companion to and compendium of the festival’s 2024 Visual Arts Program. Responding to the festival’s thematic of Ngaangk (a Noongar word meaning both ‘sun’ and 'mother'), the publication features original writing by Ballardong Noongar writer Timmah Ball, who muses on the absurdities of the Anglo culture of suntanning and speculates about a future without the sun, and curator/writer Kelly Fliedner, who reflects on lessons in life and motherhood passed on by the late WA-born artist Kate Daw.

It also features the photographic essay A Quick Dip by artist Duncan Wright. Captured across Perth beaches, the work holds up a mirror to our collective fascination with ideas of lifestyle and leisure as promised by the beach, at once prompting questions around how — and by whom — the beach is occupied and reaffirming it as vital public space to be preserved for all.

Cover artwork is taken from Wright's work, A Quick Dip.

Special thanks to Annika Kristensen and the team at Perth Festival, the contributors, and the artists and galleries in the 2024 program. This project was made possible through the generous support of Wesfarmers Arts.