Live Art 2026: Sense

Murtala in Gelambang Raya

Between two projects, Sisa-Sisa and Garrigarrang Badu, bookending Sydney Festival, I was in a three month, 7 days a week process leaping between morphing oil and water animations on perspex, building bamboo and dyed screens, rigging, Procreate digital drawing, Qlab programming, environmental research and videography. The weather was physically challenging, based in Western Sydney, Olympic Park and Bankstown, leaping between scorching sun and stormy, cool, windy days.

Alfira O'Sullivan in Jacek & Bisik

Trying to ignore the feeling of climatic apocalypse during the hype of festival vibes, Garrigarrang Badu by Jannawi Dance Clan was the first major festival showing of Dharug Women’s sovereign legacy, their saltwater / freshwater identity, how they live in the colonised western plains of Sydney. It was an honour to meet and have permissions from Aunty Julie Webb, Jacinta and Leanne Tobin and director/ choreographer Peta Strachan with rehearsal director Lea Francis. Legendary Nigel Jamieson pushed me to limits with his visionary dramaturgy, for us and Sydney Opera House audiences to immerse properly in the vibrational matriarchy of Dharug culture. It required a fast tracked process of being pointed to specific areas, Badu Mangroves, Yarramundie and Shaws Creek and closer to the harbour where the saltwater meets freshwater, to represent the multiple meanings of Garrigarrang Badu. Looking for signs of movement in the landscape to guide me in the immense process. Sketching overlays over environments, sketching essence of place and activity. Mountains, river systems, birds, eels and trees in giving synchronicity.

I also video designed Sisa-Sisa with Acehan dancers Alfira O’Sullivan and Murtala. Building a textural screen for Alfira as the bleeding heart / womb symptomatic of a lifetime of being undervalued as a multicultural arts worker, cutting to the core the fertility and fragility of women's health. Murtala used a sand floor island as screen on stage, continually scuffed up and destroyed to reflect back on the Aceh Tsunami of 2011, the lives of personal friends lost and reviving their memories through percussive movement.

Using variations in sensor rendering, transposing smaller objects with bigger dominating backgrounds with lots of detail, theatre as hyperreal presence in worlds holding infinite history. Animations not going right to left but forwards / backwards. Focussing on maintaining sanity, soft strength without ambiguity, going with the flow, survival.