What relationships exist between descendants of Algae and Whale?
Artist Lynden Nicholls comes to the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and talks with me and Paul Fletcher about the complex relationships between us and fellow creatures. We recognise ourselves as co-authoring a storyline.
Tiriki talks about layers of knowledge flowing through through space and time. I imagine ‘watery’ digital interfaces for children to virtually access physical journeys we’ll make on country as we follow the Whale Dreaming story, overlaid with stories from individual experience and Western science.
I reflect on this as Lynden and I improvise with shadows cast by seed pods from an Australian native plant and a scull from a small unknown mammal.
Paul and I discuss the idea of expanding his free library of sounds to include primal gestural forms and animated scientific data.
With this in mind, I improvise with water on a Chinese calligraphy mat to suggest the experience of life beginning for Krill in the Southern Ocean, and I set this to sounds improvised by VCA animators Arca, Bonnie and Xanthe.
And so Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill) begins to tell her story, inspired by conversations with Lynden, Paul and Tiriki, workshops with Paul and his students, and written words by krill biologist Rob King. I adapt Rob’s words to serve as a script for Euphausia to tell her own story, which begins, “In summer we spawn in open water.”