Wattleup, in Perth's southern suburbs, is just a half-hour drive from the CBD but a world away from the city, with market gardens, turf farms, a variety of light industrial businesses and a series of streets where all the homes have been demolished.
Jim Cukrov's parents moved to Wattleup in the 1950s after emigrating from Yugoslavia, built a house, and established a market garden on a 5-acre plot.
Jim remembers a tight-knit community with many neighbours who also came from Europe and a life that revolved around home and the market gardens.
"Right here was just gardens," he says, standing in front of his family's former home at 20 Dalison Avenue, which faces the now empty blocks where his neighbours' homes once stood.
"There were mainly 5 to 7-acre blocks or market gardens. Cousins of ours used to live up the road.
But in 1997, the Wattleup residents' peace was shattered by a government report that declared their homes had been built too close to the Kwinana industrial area, in what was meant to have been a buffer zone.
The state government decided that the properties should be resumed and the land used only for industrial purposes in future.
Dubbed the Latitude 32 Industry Zone, the plan was formally adopted by the state government in 2000.
"Dad passed away in 1999," Jim says.
"People were getting out 18, 19, 20 years ago. They were selling, and so all this belongs to WA Development now."
But Jim's mother, Yolanda, was determined not to leave. As the houses around her were bought up and demolished, she stayed on, along with one other family up the road.
"Mum still had friends here. When they left, Mum was on her own. Mrs Rokich was still alive and when she passed, I said: ‘Mum, what do you want to do?' She said: ‘I'm staying'.
"Mum did not want to leave. We had a couple of valuations when Mum was alive and Mum said: ‘No, I'm not going anywhere'."
For the last 20 years of her life, Jim lived with his mother, caring for her until she passed away last year, at home, aged 94.
The family finally sold the house to the Western Australian Land Authority for demolition in September 2021.
Then, they received a surprising phone call.
Artist Ian Strange wanted to create a large-scale artwork with the home before it was bulldozed.
Famed for his large-scale installation artworks in abandoned or "hold-out" houses around the world, Strange planned "an installation and art project with the house in its final days" in December 2021.
The plan involved installing a 27-metre-wide LED light screen as a backdrop to the projections and to light up the house for a one-off, 20-minute performance, accompanied by a score from American musician Trevor Powers.
The work was filmed and photographed for future exhibitions, with the sole live performance of the work shown to a group of around 40 former residents, including the Cukrovs.
"Jim has been really supportive of the project," Strange says.
"We've had a couple of teary conversations about what's happened in the home and memories of his mother and his father working in a market garden out the back and the large Yugoslav community that was here and how they as a family watched this area sort of grow up and then slowly disappear as well."
Through the lights and patterns projected on and behind the house, Strange created an installation that chronicled 20 Dalison Avenue and the community that surrounded it.
"A large part of it is telling the story of that home and the family and also this neighbourhood as well," he says.
"When you see the house, it's such a beautiful, simple, almost child's drawing of a house, it's really quite an iconic silhouette.
"And I think hold-out homes around the world are always fascinating stories."
For Jim, the light and music show was a moving celebration of his old family home.
"It's unreal. Just precious. The music's perfect, the colour's perfect. I can't really describe it. It's just magnificent," he says.
While he's philosophical about the need for the house to go and has moved to a new home in nearby Yangebup, he's delighted the house got such a send-off.
"I wonder what Mum and Dad would be saying, looking down: ‘What in the hell is going on down here?'"
Dalison will be screened and exhibited in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney.
