Lynette Wallworth - Still:Waiting2

Still:Waiting2 is an immersive installation environment that is both unsettled and revealed by our presence. Filmed on high definition video in an eerie twilight, Still:Waiting2's evocative surround sound–scape amplifies the dramatic movement of enormous flocks of birds. The imagery comes from the Flinders Ranges, South Australia – an area that is home to huge flocks of native Corellas that meet at first and last light in the Red River gums of dry creek beds. Amongst the most social birds known, Corellas have evolved scouts who fly ahead of the large flocks to ensure safe travel.

Wallworth's installation sets up two zones within the work. The first is a kind of hide, where we are present and veiled from intimate imagery of the birds in silhouette. The second zone occurs as one enters the expanse beyond. At this moment the space is ruptured: the birds flee, leaving subsequent visitors to enter a space containing a landscape of solitary trees where that intimacy is lost. The work is about a threshold, a gateway that is passed through often unknowingly. Movement causes rupture and triggers changes that we cannot anticipate and often cannot see, contemplating a basic truth: entering any space has consequences.

As the threshold is crossed for the first time, viewers must wait in stillness if the birds are to return. The work offers us a choice, however as we – like the Corellas – live in social groups, our choices are affected by others. The first point of entry from hide into territory may be made by someone else, maybe too hurried for us, perhaps before we are ready. Still:Waiting2, like many of Wallworth's environments, functions around visitors' relationships that are communal rather than solitary – reflecting on human immersion in a complex, interconnected world.

Exhibition

10 Sep – 7 Dec 07 | BEAP, John Curtin Gallery, Perth, AU

Commissioned by New Crowned Hope and Arnolfini
Produced by Forma
Supported by Arts Council England and the City of Melbourne Arts House program, Australia Council Fellowship New Media and Visual Arts Board

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Lynette Wallworth

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