Commissioned by Bunbury Regional Art Gallery (BRAG), A New Constellation is an expanded exhibition catalogue for the 2024 South West Art Now (SWAN) exhibition – the longest-running review of contemporary art practice in Western Australia's prolific South West region. Featuring the work of the 28 artists presented in the exhibition, the book looks beyond the scope of singular works toward conversations between works across time and place, gesturing at the region's collective cultural production.

Texts from Associate Professor Donna Mazza (ECU) and writer and poet Jo Porter explore both the possibilities and the challenges of an artistic life in a part of the world equally defined by its geographic and cultural isolation and its potent landscape. Mazza's essay Rock, Creation and Night Sky positions these three elements as pillars of existence and as portals into new or reinvigorated ways of seeing. Porter's Seven Lights for the Naked Eye weaves across the book, its poetic components serving as prologues to each section, which correspond to areas within the South West region.

Also contained is a curatorial essay by BRAG director Dr. Michael Bianco, A Constellation of Dusty Roads – a kind of creative reportage from his literal and imagined journeys between artists' homes and studios that suggests a new norm of de-centred and disruptive art practice might change the way the discipline engages with critical issues, if it can only be recognised and seen. Bianco, too, grapples with the trade-off made by artists who are (whether by chance, choice or necessity) removed from global art centres: the isolation, and (often) the corresponding lack of resources and platforms. In this context, he says, "each artist’s practice is akin to a burning star in the night sky, collectively forming a novel celestial arrangement. Drawing these lines among practices tells a compelling story of our current moment, offering insights into the questions, concerns, and ambitions that illuminate the path of creativity in this corner of the world."

A New Constellation positions the artists in its pages in this way: as energy centres – points of light – that are scattered and solitary but also inextricably linked and formidable. In tracing these connections, or drawing new constellations, the book attempts to illuminate the many meanings and possible interpretations or experiences of the practices and processes they present. It is designed to be read not only in the context of the gallery but outside of it, and to be returned to over time as a lasting documentation of the artistic records found inside.