Fremantle Biennale: Whalefall

Artists Ben Frost and Tom Mùller collaborate on Whalefall, a new temporary work conceived in response to the landmark Port Beach Shed — a skeletal, stand-alone structure that stands sentinel at the intersection of Tydeman and Port Beach Roads, gazing out over the vast Indian Ocean.

The work pays homage to a rare and solemn event: the appearance of a lone sperm whale, the largest of the toothed whales, which came dangerously close to Port Beach before becoming stranded on a sandbar near Rockingham. Despite efforts to assist, the whale died, leaving behind a haunting presence.

Whalefall transforms the existing edifice into a sanctuary of sound and light — a spectral memorial to this marine giant. The structure becomes an illuminated carcass, pulsing with sonic echoes that reference the whale’s extraordinary acoustic world. Sperm whales communicate and echolocate through powerful clicks, trumpets, and codas, with vocalisations reaching up to 230 decibels — the loudest of any animal on Earth.

In this work, Frost and Mùller evoke the ghostly resonance of these underwater signals, reimagining the shed as both a beacon and a requiem — a place where land meets sea, memory meets myth, and silence is filled with the language of giants.