The Birdsong is
Deafening (2020)
The Birdsong is Deafening is a body
of work that contemplates the endlessly shifting landscape between memory, loss
and place. It reflects upon the relationship I have to my hometown of Cairns
and the in-between spaces of growing up with a multicultural identity. In the process of creating, I
gathered around me the residue of memory. I consulted old creek beds I once dug
holes in, bike paths I frequented, musty cane fields burning the same fires and
the well-worn family albums asleep in an old fridge.
I used the camera to trace
over these thoughts on identity and what began as a solitary meditation slowly
extended into a gentle collaboration with the land and those closest to me. I
found solace in narrating a fragment of my own story with the thought that I
might entangle others in its roots. Although you may not feel exactly the same
poetic sentiments I have tried to steep these images in – I invite you to
recall your own longings and to create dialogue between worlds that are both
real and imagined, familiar and unfamiliar, here and there.
