My recent application to the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund Create funding round was successful! I know, super exciting. The grant will fund the development of Sing, a new installation work comprising fifty handwoven pendant nests containing individual speakers emitting bird calls sourced from my time in the Amazon. Sing will be an immersive and poetic work reflective of the delicate and intricate natural connections found in remaining ‘wild’ environments.
This new work will be an outcome of my recent residency in Manaus, State of Amazonia, Brazil, where I was enthralled by the precarious suspension of Yellow-rumped Cacique nests over the flooded forests within the Amazon jungle. The nests exhibited in Sing will be reflective of the cacique nests, both in texture and colour. However, rather than being made of indigenous Amazonian flora the nests in Sing, will be created with African palm oil fronds – a plant being cultivated as an industrial, agricultural crop following the clearing of tropical rainforests globally.
The development of the work will see me travel to Cairns in September 2020, to source the nest material.
Stay tuned for regular updates!