Anamundi Studio's Jasmine Christie "We need more spaces for community...and conflict"
Words Emma Vidgen // @emma_vee
Imagery Emma Wise // @emmawisephotography
Mathew Coyte ///@mathewcoyte
Image: Emma Wise
Designing spaces that transport you to another world has always been a something of a super power for Jasmine Christie. Before she launched the multi-purpose event and co-working space Anamundi Studio in the Byron Shire, she created other worlds in theatre, film and television. “Growing up I was involved in community theatre and I ended up training in set, costume and production design,” says Jasmine. “I worked for 10 years in Sydney in freelance set design, costume design, art department, props, all kinds of things. Sometimes television, film, commercials and some theatre.”
After a decade in the entertainment industry, Jasmine craved a simpler existence. “I got disheartened on that trajectory. It was hard to quantify the hours and the design time, so I thought ‘I want a trade’,” she recalls. Jasmine went on to train as a florist – a skill she uses regularly help transform Anamundi into an ethereal, other-worldly place for everything from weddings and parties to moon circles and tea ceremonies.
But as any creative can attest, adding extra strings to your bow doesn’t always make life easier. “I was doing a bit of everything and had the dilemma of being a Jack of all trades in a creative world, wanting to be my own boss and wanting to find a more soulful, spiritual way.”
“Here you're really rewarded for putting things out there. If you have an idea and you have a dream people really step in to support you.”
A CHANGE OF PACE
Feeling the pull to live a slower life, Jasmine moved to the Byron Shire 18 months ago and began dreaming up a concept space that utilised all of her skills and would create room for the things she valued most. “The essence of Anamundi is the idea of where human to human connection and earth to nature connection meet,” says Jasmine.
Providing a space to facilitate for connection is at the heart of Jasmine’s creative vision. “I think people are crying out for community and human connection, even if it’s just as simple as getting a workspace,” says Jasmine. “When I was freelancing a lot, I found that a very lonely process. I would spend 80 per cent of my day in the car, driving and commuting. Whereas the actual geography of not having to cover so much ground in a day takes a lot of the mental load off as well.”
It’s a stark contrast to city life. “I feel like I am working at the same pace that I worked at in Sydney except in Sydney I'm competing with the resistance of life, the whole survival thing – whether it was working against parking, traffic or really basic things,” says Jasmine. “Here it was so much easier to have human to human connection. I think that's why the ball starts rolling quickly when you have that kind of human support. Whereas the isolation of the city sort of felt, yeah, quite challenging and just very isolating I think.”
“If I started Anamundi in Sydney there would have been more resistance. Here, it just felt my whole lifestyle changed in order to start the process,” Jasmine says. “Up here you're really rewarded for putting things out there. If you come up with an idea and you have a dream that you want to put on, I feel people really step in to support you. If you come with action and a momentum, things move very quickly.”
CONNECTING WITH THE POWER OF SPACE
One of Jasmine’s favourite aspects of life in the country is the feeling of space on both a physical and emotional level. “I always tell my friends that you can have a really amazing free day here, if you just need a timeout but you don’t have a lot of money to spend. You can still go and see a beautiful ocean. It doesn't cost you money for parking, you can sit there at the river, you can swim, you can do those things that don't cost you anything. Your health, your wellbeing is much easier to maintain. You have to really fight for your wellbeing in a city, I think.”
The view across Newrybar from Anamundi Studio
Spatial awareness remains essential to Jasmine’s work, using the power of the senses as an instrument for story-telling. “Someone said to me that you go into the theatre as individuals and you leave as an audience. I think that's really beautiful because it's that common experience. It's the common shared experience that brings people together,” she says. “It doesn't matter if I'm putting on a dinner party, a wedding, an event or a gathering, a full moon circle, something like that. The idea is that what I love doing is curating an experience that sort of curated from the beginning to the end. That's in sound, that's in the senses, all that sort of sensory aspect.”
HOLDING SPACE FOR DIFFERENCES
So what’s next for Anamundi Studio? “I'd like to create events with food that had a political undertone. I want the conversations to come from a place of beauty and not cynicism
Questions around environmental activism, culture, preserving indigenous culture and languages, immigration,” says Jasmine. “I feel it can be quite one dimensional in that sense. You get a lot of like-minded people, which is great when you're all moving forward together, but it's a bit of a bubble in that way. Inviting more challenging conversations and changing the demographic of the people in the room would be great next evolution for Anamundi.”