For the last 16 months, 21-year-old Willow Swaneveld has found herself jumping at the sound of rustling leaves, worrying about being under tall trees and unable to hear a standard iPhone alarm tone without a surge of panic.
At 6am on October 29, 2021 — the exact moment her alarm went off — the branch of a 30-metre gum tree crashed into the bedroom of a studio on her family’s property in Cockatoo, in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges.
Willow Swaneveld, 21, is still dealing with the emotional effects of the June 2021 storm that destroyed her home.Credit:Jason South
Swaneveld’s home was one of the more than 170 properties that were damaged in a terrifying storm that ripped through the region. More than 70 were rendered uninhabitable.
“Everything was shaking and I looked up and all I saw was brown. I didn’t know what it was. All I knew is it was coming closer,” Swaneveld said.
Above her, the airconditioning unit was torn off the wall and the ceiling fan was hanging from a single wire, still spinning. She looked out her bedroom window and saw the same tree had smashed through the centre of the main house.
Swaneveld, who had lost her dad only three months earlier in a motorcycle accident, said her immediate thought was of her mother. She rushed through broken glass, smashed walls and dust swirling like snow in the house, finding her mother huddled in a bedroom.
“The tree got every room in the house. It felt like a jungle. My old bedroom was cracked open like a tin of sardines,” Swaneveld said.
Swaneveld is one of seven young people who have lent their stories of the storm to a new augmented reality exhibition, called Hard Place/Good Place, which has just opened at the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in Lilydale.
The installation is part of The Big Anxiety festival, which uses art to raise mental health awareness with events across Melbourne, led by RMIT and UNSW.
Swaneveld’s narrative includes scenes from the flattened property: the fridge that propped up the tree and prevented it from falling further and potentially killing someone, and her dad’s tattoo studio which she slept in and was the only structure left standing.
A photo taken of Willow’s fridge while preparing images for the exhibition.
After her father died, Swaneveld had begged her mum to let them stay in the family home because she wanted to still “feel his footsteps”. But they would constantly pass by the accident site only 10 minutes from home.
She now likes to think that in a strange, celestial way, her dad was sending a message through the storm that the family would be better off moving to support their grief.
After a few months of couch-surfing then living in a rental property, Swaneveld moved into a new home in Tecoma last month. The family plans to sell the Cockatoo property once the house is demolished.
Swaneveld said she felt she was dealing with “a continual trauma”, but had immense pride in what she, her mother and brother had overcome.
She is now an apprentice tattooist, following in the footsteps of her dad who was a popular local tattoo artist.
Swaneveld became involved in the Yarra Ranges exhibition after being approached by Windermere Foundation, a charity that supported her after the storm.
“I didn’t realise how much I needed my story to be heard. That’s when I started to accept this had happened,” she said. “It took away the storm’s power.”
Volker Kuchelmeister, an immersive visualisation researcher at UNSW’s Felt Experience and Empathy Lab, said the installation gave young people a space to speak about their suffering.
The installation uses voice recordings and pop-up 3D images to create an immersive experience which promotes understanding of the disaster’s impacts.
“The storm still impacts on people’s lives every day and a project like this can help the community get together and talk about their experiences,” Kuchelmeister said.
Yarra Ranges councillor David Eastham said the storm’s effects remained widely felt in the community, from mental health impacts to residents still being unable to return to their homes.
There were constant reminders of the destruction, he said. It’s not unusual to see large fallen trees in the bush because they simply could not be removed.
“There are views people never had before and I don’t mean that in a positive way,” Eastham said “It’s going to take generations for the mountain to get back to what it was.”
Yarra Ranges Council has spent more than $16 million on storm recovery and has been lobbying the state government to pledge $19 million for key recovery initiatives as the community continues to deal with the fallout.
Eastham, who visited the exhibition, praised the “incredible” young people.
“I didn’t think the exhibition could be as immersive and emotive as what it is.”
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