Southern Process Documentation
“It is the loss of control, swept along in a swollen river, much like a wave crashing on a rock, it is destruction and creation at the same time— and though the energy is ongoing, a convergence eventually occurs, and the wave undergoes a transformative process as it merges to re-form. Similarly, Dadirri provides the catalyst for this transformational moment. An awakening to the realisation of the flow of life is constantly within us, the deep spring—deep listening to deep. A moment of quiet, still awareness, which creates a non-judgemental space for the relational and agential sharing of stories that identifies, (re)connects. The individual is offered agency that is a becoming with Country and community”
Relational Accountability
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Gathering Knowledge
Recording Practices
I have always started with sound in my animation; whether that has been music, interviews, voiceover, or foley, sound instinctively guides my visual practice. To me, it serves as a reminder that I don’t control the creative process and I continue guided by what is already here.
During my various moments of gathering knowledge I have always reflected back on protocol for harvesting medicines. How am I ensuring the knowledge that I am gathering is done in a good way? This questioning is part of the repeating cycle of being on the Land, listening, and gathering. Although, in many instances, gathering knowledge means collecting sage or berries, in this section I’ll discuss the gathering of sound. The sound is an often overlooked component to an animation. Conditioned as we are through western epistemologies, we build our realities from what we see as observers and we often forget there are other ways of knowing the world. While I am not an audio engineer or a sound artist, I know the importance sound carries throughout an animation and to tell a story in a more wholistic manner. I think here of our oral storytelling traditions and the embedded generational memory we have from sounds of elders speaking into the firelight. The sound in the final piece is derived in part from McKiver’s song “Niiwini,” which is overlaid with a spatial recording of me completing circles around the recording device in my Jingle dress.