Murmurations: a dawn bird walk and reading group with Eugenia Lim and Coen Hird
Beginning with the sunrise, Murmurations asks us to step outside our rhythms and into the temporalities of birds. Meeting the dawn chorus, we begin with an early morning “birdwatching” walk (with the offering to draw, listen, and commune with the birds on Yuggera and Turrbal Country). Attending to the rhythms through which birds orient themselves, the walk also opens questions about ‘regular programming’ of our labour, time and movements. From the lakes, the workshop moves into a polyvocal reading group of a ‘chorus’ of texts that layer decolonial thinking, place and environmental change, migratory birds and more-than-human kin. At the end of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to reflect collectively through writing, drawing, observation and conversation, before addressing and offering these responses back to the birds themselves.
Murmurations is a collaboration between artist and researcher Eugenia Lim and environmental scientist Coen Hird, threading together their commitments to migratory birds and listening to place.
This free, in-person workshop takes place at UQ St Lucia. It starts at 5.30am to meet the dawn chorus. Numbers are limited. Participation is via EOI (closing Sunday 25th of October). No prior birdwatching experience is required or expected. No pre-reading is needed — texts will be shared on the day. Please indicate access needs in the EOI. Further workshop details will be shared with confirmed participants.
- Friday 13 of November, 5:30am-9:00am | UQ St Lucia
- Participation by EOI (closing Sunday 25th of October)
Murmurations is part of Reflective Motives: Two Days with UQ Art Museum and the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network.
Eugenia Lim is an artist, researcher and filmmaker of Chinese–Singaporean ancestry whose work with moving image, performance, sculpture, installation and social practice is informed by histories—and counter-narratives—of migration, capital, labour, ecology and the politics of space. Working between documentary, speculative, and poetic modes, Lim’s practice explores how the diasporic condition can engender ways of seeing in resistance to the colonial gaze. Stemming from an emplaced, relational and collaborative approach—with gig economy workers to sewage treatment plants—Lim’s art-making platforms places and communities that are otherwise unseen or undervalued in dominant culture. Based in Naarm on unceded Wurundjeri lands, Lim has shown at theTate Modern (GBR), LOOPBarcelona (ESP), Jinan Biennial (CN), Recontemporary (IT), Kassel Dokfest (DE), AGNSW (AU), ACCA (AU), FACT Liverpool (GBR), Substation (SG), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (DK) and EXiS (KR). Lim is a Sidney MyerCreative Fellowship alumni and winner of Kunsthal Charlottenborg Spring’s 2022 DeepForest Art Land Award. In 2024, Lim was one of 10 international directors selected for Berlinale Talents Short Form Station.
Coen Hird is an interdisciplinary biologist researching and teaching in anticolonial scientific praxis. Coen has scientific expertise in ecological and evolutionary biology, molecular biology and animal physiology and has published academic works across disciplines. Coen has broad interests in centering Indigenous priorities and Indigenous rights in scientific research, emphasising respectful engagement with Indigenous communities. Coen's work bridges cultural and scientific gaps, fostering a deeper understanding of Indigenous ways of coming into knowledge as a valid scientific endeavour.
Coen is a trawlwoolway pakana related to northeast lutruwita (Hearps, Briggs family) and accountable to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Coen grew up as a visitor to many lands in so-called Australia and currently is associated with Yuggera and Turrbal lands around Magandjin.
Image credit:
Eugenia Lim, film still from Metabolism (2023), 2K video, colour, sound, 29:15. Originally commissioned by Public Art Commission. Cinematographer: Tim Hillier. Courtesy of the artist.
About Reflective Motives: Two Days with the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network and UQ Art Museum
Reflective Motives is a two-day gathering hosted by UQ Art Museum in collaboration with the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network (CACP). The program is made up of four artist-led workshops facilitated by invited artists and researchers: Dominique Chen, Caitlin Franzmann, Libby Harward, Bianca Hester, Eugenia Lim, Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, Lleah Smith and collaborators to be announced. The keynote conversation will take place between Dr. Aunty Mary Graham and Tristen Harwood. Alongside shared meals, walks and screenings, Marilena Hewitt will collaborate with attendees and facilitators to create a responsive Reflective Motives reader, collating conversations, workshop notes, reflections and printing experiments, in a live publication to be distributed at the event’s close.
Reflective Motives brings together artists, researchers, educators and curators for two days of practice-led climate thinking. Drawing on Dr. Aunty Mary Graham’s articulation of ‘the reflective motive’ as mode of understanding and practicing relationality, this gathering offers strategies for responding to a socially and environmentally changed climate in the context of contemporary art. Reflective Motives is an invitation to engage with artists working with place, Country, matter and language. Alongside hosted workshops and talks, a breakout space will provide room for unprogrammed conversations, sharing, meals, and exchanges, as well as a platform for attendees to self-organise their own creative and collective contributions to the event.
Community Picnic Blanket Exchange
As part of Reflective Motives attendees are invited to participate in a community picnic blanket exchange. Get stitching/weaving/patching/printing! In your studio, with friends, collaborators, community groups, or in classrooms, you are invited to create a picnic blanket to bring, use and swap.
Further details to be released in September, including a full program and social story. Please register to stay up to date, including further details for session registration as some parts of this program will have limited capacity.
Reflective Motives is organised by Therese Keogh and Jacqueline Chlanda with Helen Hughes, Tara McDowell and Terri Bird from the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network
Reflective Motives is hosted by UQ Art Museum in partnership with the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network and is supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, and by Monash Art Design and Architecture.
