Despite the wet weather, a steady stream of visitors made their way into the rustic Stone Barn Stables at Tocal Homestead during Tocal Field Days (May 2–4) to experience Todd Fuller’s evocative animation They Call Me Blacket. Across the weekend, several hundred people viewed the work—many pausing, reflecting, and even returning for a second look. One visitor summed it up simply: “It brought a tear to my eye.”
Projected inside one of Tocal’s most iconic heritage buildings, the animation tells the story of Blacket Barn—designed in 1867 by renowned 19th-century architect Edmund Blacket. Today, it remains one of the few surviving examples of his rural architecture in Australia.
This six-minute, hand-drawn animation is the result of extraordinary craftsmanship, as described by Fuller:
“The work consists of approximately 1,800 stills across 14 pieces of paper. Each moment is drawn, photographed, and erased using a traditional stop-motion methodology. The paper was washed to give an aged feel before stills were drawn and manipulated using chalk, charcoal and acrylic. As the stills are erased and altered, they leave behind remnants and traces which speak to the historical nature of the piece and site.”
But it’s also the poetic script—written by Fuller and narrated by Tim Mallon—that gives the work its emotional resonance.
In They Call Me Blacket, it is the barn itself that speaks. Its voice reflects on the many lives that have passed through its space: workers, families, and the layers of history. Even the memory of the tree from which it was built features in the telling. Paired with an original score by Ryley Gillen, the animation becomes more than a tribute to architecture—it’s a meditation on memory, presence, and the passage of time. As Todd explains:
“My colleagues at Tocal had such a passion for Blacket’s barn as a space with lots of stories to be excavated. But being a barn, it felt necessary to personify the structure, to gift it a voice so that those stories could become audible. I took notes from various research and conversations and started trying to weave those together and find the voice of Blacket Barn while simultaneously drawing in relation to the site and reference material. I had to imagine what the Barn might say, what Blacket Barn might feel, what its tone is, its sentiments—and then the poem at the base of the piece started to form in tandem with the animation being created. In doing so, the aged voice of the barn meant that the piece was able to be liberated from traditional linear storytelling and instead became a poetic layering of memories and meaning.”
The animation was developed as part of This Here Then Now, a Creative Valleys cultural tourism initiative produced by Arts Upper Hunter and coordinated by Suzannah Jones in partnership with Tocal Homestead.
“Todd’s work is a profound example of what this project is about,” says Jones. “It presents us with the layers of the story—not just facts about a static structure, but its narrative, its emotional history, ultimately bringing it to life and engaging audiences in a deeply human way.”
They Call Me Blacket will screen again at future events at Tocal Homestead. Keep an eye out for upcoming announcements.
This project is supported by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, the NSW Government, and the C B Alexander Foundation.
“The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government initiative supporting the arts in regional, remote and very remote/isolated Australia.”
For more information, visit: www.creativevalleys.com.au or contact: rado@artsupperhunter.com.au.
Image: Todd Fuller
