Where Lakes Once Had Water by artists Sonia Leber and David Chesworth considers the ways in which the Earth is experienced and understood through different ways of being, seeing, sensing, listening, and thinking across First Nations culture, art, science, ancient and modern societies, the animal world, and the spaces in between.
Informed by their investigations of remote landscapes and lakes of the Northern Territory, with a team of Earth and environmental scientists, Leber and Chesworth present a large-scale, dual-screen 28-minute video work alongside three sound, video, and sculptural works. The video introduces Mudburra man Ray Dimakarri Dixon, who calls to ancestral spirits to watch over Country as the scientists meticulously excavate the red earth of the once-submerged bed of Lake Woods. Working across the ancient shorelines, everyone is receptive to the signs, signals and rhythms of the land. Meanwhile, non-human cohabitants continue their struggles for survival. Back in the laboratory, scientists use the sediment samples to analyse cycles of wetting and drying in Australia over at least 130,000 years.
Sonia Leber and David Chesworth, Where Lakes Once Had Water (video still), 2020, two-channel 4K UHD video, stereo audio, 28:24 minutes, filmed on the lands and waters of the Mudburra, Marlinja, Jingili, Elliot, Jawoyn and Larrakia communities in Northern Territory, Australia, with additional filming and editing on Barkandji, Dharawal, Djabugay, Yidinji, and Wurundjeri Country. University of Wollongong Art Collection. CABAH Art Series Commission in association with Bundanon. Courtesy the artists and TarraWarra Museum of Art, Melbourne
TarraWarra Museum of Art
30 July to 13 November 2022
Melbourne
