Award-winning films, performances and discourse events at the Songlines exhibition in October

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. 

As part of the exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, the Emmy awardwinning VR documentary Collisions invites audiences on a journey into the Australian desert. The video installation Giraru Galing Ganhagiri – The wind will bring the rain presents a poetic dance meditation. A #performance by Joel Bray questions objects and events at the site of the #humboldtforum, while anthropologist #stephenclevinson analyses Aboriginal storytelling with sand.

Until 30 October, visitors will have the opportunity to experience the Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters exhibition at the #humboldtforum. By presenting painting, #performance, #film and multimedia installations, the exhibition visualizes Indigenous knowledge about ecology and geology, psychology and ethics, medicine and astronomy for an international audience. Moreover, in October the exhibition will be complemented by additional films and events referring to Indigenous life and its stories. 

Collisions documentary by Lynnette Wallworth, 360° VR installation, 16 minutes

13, 16 October, 10 am – 8 pm. 14, 15 October: 10 am – 10 pm, hall 2

A stunning 360° VR experience, Australian filmmaker Lynette Wallworth’s Collisions invites audiences on a journey to the land of the Indigenous #martueldernyarrinyarrimorgan and his community in the remote Western Australian desert.

In an immersive virtual reality experience, Nyarri shares his story of the dramatic collision between his traditional world view and his experience of nuclear testing in the South Australian desert. From songs of the oldest surviving culture on the planet to drones soaring above the red desert, from projectors powered by car batteries to bombs that poison the land, the installation raises the question how we will steward this world into the future.

Collisions was awarded at several international #film festivals and won an Emmy Award in 2017.

Giraru Galing Ganhagirri. The wind will bring the rain video installation by Joel Bray, German premiere

13, 16 October, 10 am – 8 pm. 14, 15 October: 10 am – 10 pm, hall 2

Artist Talk: 15 October, 6 pm

An artist living in Naarm (Melbourne), Joel Bray is a proud Wiradjuri man whose practice springs from his cultural heritage. For this exploration of his land, he collaborated with the filmmaker James Wright and the composer Daniel Nixon – creating a poetic, choreographic meditation. The multi-channel screen video installation of pure dance Giraru Galing Ganhagirri (Wiradjuri for ‘The Wind Will Bring Rain’) reflects on the implacable force of Country, the circle of life, the meeting of the elements of air and water. In a nod to ancient ceremony and filmed entirely on Joel’s ancestral Wiradjuri Country, Joel gently inhabits the landscape with his body literally ‘painted’ with Country.

The Land Remembers #performance by Joel Bray

14 October, 3 pm and 5 pm; 15 October, 3, 5 and 6 pm; 16. October, 3 and 5 pm, foyer

Bodies carry memories. Places as well. Joel Bray examines in his ‘response’ #performance the most diverse layers of memory of a particular place: memories of a very long coexistence, of conquerors, floods, fires and successful self-assertion. A journey through place and body, for and at the #humboldtforum. 

In Bray’s performances, the audiences are invited in as co-storytellers to explore the experiences of fair-skinned Aboriginal #people, and the experiences of contemporary gay men in an increasingly digital and isolated world. His body becomes the intersection site of these songlines – Indigenous heritage, skin-colour and queer sexuality.               

Sand Stories. Indigenous multi-media in Australia discussion with #stephenclevinson and Uta Kornmeier 26 October, 6 pm, Songlines exhibition hall

Sand stories constitute an Indigenous form of storytelling in Central Australia, in which gestures and sketches in the sand accompany the telling of myths and journeys. These visual media complement the spoken word, adding vital information, rhetorical emphasis and precision to the flow of information. Taking the video documentation of a sand story in the exhibition Songlines. Tracking the Seven Sisters as a starting point, anthropologist and linguist #stephenclevinson speaks with curator Uta Kornmeier about the importance of spatial thinking in Aboriginal life, and how this connects to the use of gesture, to the sand drawing tradition, as well as to the landscape and its mythology.