Natural Environments and Cognitive Dissonance

 

Sonic Sites, Bundanon Trust (May 2021)

Pre-lockdown in NSW we squeezed in two quick projects; SONIC SITES at Bundanon Trust with Ensemble Offspring and MY BOVINE HEART with performer Regina Heilmann at University of Wollongong. Both projects interlinked through a state of cognitive dissonance; Bovine Heart focussing on meat eating whilst loving the soul of animals and Sonic Sites being an epic artistic drive to achieve a vision against the odds of time, weather and environment.

Sonic Sites was a Bundanon Trust commissioned work with Ensemble Offspring's composers collaborating with Nowra local music students to elicit deeper understandings and connections to nature. Here we installed 4 monitors with wooden frames amongst the trees at Rosemary's Rocks, a favourite photo site for works by photographer Rosemary Laing. 

On My Bovine Heart I collaborated with Regina on her Phd work over five years and it finally came to fruition. A carefully considered, poetic solo work set to a backdrop of a butcher's cool room, on which I projected subconscious imagery of her empathetically embodying cows she has been acquainted with. Wrapped within the paradox of herself being being sent to slaughter, being presented and eaten as meat. The psychological hangman event of devouring the things that matter most to us.

Regina Heilmann My Bovine Heart video still (May 2021)