This page provides an overview of my work and projects. For much of 2020-2022, the focus of my practice has been on collaborative, social ecology projects on the ecoPULSE.art website. Media coverage of this work is on the ecoPULSE.art media page (link below). 2023 saw my focus swing back to solo works and projects.
BLOG POSTS
MEDIA COVERAGE
Other media coverage can be found on the Snapshot page
2024: Permissive path, Australian Walking Artists exhibitions
A chapbook of walking-inspired writings, photographs and soundscapes was compiled into an anthology titled Permissive path. This was shown and made available for sale at the first survey exhibition of walking art to be staged by the national Australian Walking Artists network at Articulate project space, 10 February – 3 March 2024, and later in 2024 at Wayout Artspace, Kandos NSW.
20pp, A5 portrait, black and white chapbook, 130gsm
2023-24: #SoundOfSoils project, Dubbo NSW
The #SoundOfSoils project puts an ear on the unremarkable tenuous or rudimentary soils of Central West New South Wales, Australia, capturing an intimate, reciprocal conversation between the artist and these ‘good-for-nothing’ soils. Along with the presentation of a co-authored abstract with US artist/academic, Anne Yoncha, titled Sound of Soils: Two approaches to a multisensory understanding of soil, at the Centennial Celebration and Congress of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS), 19-21 May 2024, Florence, Italy, an 8-minute soundscape composition and 650-word poetic prose will be presented in an 8pp chapbook format in an exhibition following the congress. This project was initiated by the ecoartspace Soil Dialogues.
2023-24: SOIL+AiR: creative future landscapes project, NSW
SOIL+AiR creative future landscapes is a rural artist residency project that brings together the arts, science and technology to look at social and agro-ecologies of mainstream farming regions of New South Wales. It is an artist/farmer collaboration creatively exploring and challenging food and fibre-producing systems adapting to a rapidly changing environment. As well as on-farm activities, the project engages and connects with the wider regional community through listening, sharing, storytelling, and creative sensorial experiences, on and off-farm. The scoping stage completed in July-October 2023, involved conversations with artists, farmers and communities across New South Wales and Shropshire, UK about residency models and rural arts exchanges. A pilot residency is in planning for 2024, working collaboratively with Narromine farmer, Bruce Maynard, to creatively explore his agroecology (farming) systems, as well as undertake research into different aspects of agroecology practice and traditional land management practices, to better understand a diverse range of perspectives, processes and hopes for the future. Sharing of stories, experiences and understandings will occur within the community and internationally.
The scoping study was been funded by a Country Arts Support Program, with thanks to Create NSW through Orana Arts. Funding for the pilot residency is still pending.
2023 – : The Sonic Language of (Lost) Landscapes
Started in August 2023 during a month-long residency on the Isle of Skye, this project is an extension of my field-recording sound art practice, with the aim of making sonic worlds more accessible through immersive, experiential written language. These writings sit alongside the recordings, compositions, videos and haptic pieces I’m already working with. Centred on periods of attentive listening in the environment, close observation of my response to that environment, as well as what’s happening around me, and reading the work of others in the environment/nature writing genre inform the texts. I expect this project to evolve over time to include other activities that align with my practice. No funding has yet been sought for this project.
2022 – 2024 : Regional Futures: Vaticinor, soundscape composition, sound sculpture, audio stories (with transcriptions), and a free verse poem, NSW
Vaticinor is the project I developed for the Statewide (NSW) Regional Futures project exploring the future of the regions. I was commissioned by Dubbo Regional Council, who were a partner in Regional Future through Orana Arts. A cross-region creative conversation was facilitated between the Central West and Mid North Coast, specifically looking at these regions in a post-carbon world. In Stage 1, I undertook self-directed residencies at Wellington Caves (10 days), the Mid North Coast (4 days) as well as attending the National Renewables in Agriculture Conference in Albury (18 August). I returned to the Mid North Coast and Manning Valley in October for 4 more days of story and sound gathering. A small group exhibition was held at Manning Regional Art Gallery, 23 March – 13 May 2023. The work was shown at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Western Sydney, 24 June – 24 September. The project was funded by the Regional Arts Network through Create NSW, Orana Arts, and Dubbo Regional Council.
A small group exhibition of seven women from the 2022-23 Regional Future project exhibition will be held at the Basil Sellars Exhibition Centre in Moruya in October/November 2024. The exhibition will be called Regional Futures: an Entangled Existence.
MORE PROJECT INFORMATION
SOUNDCLOUD PLAYLIST
BLOG POST: IS THIS ART?
CLIMATECULTURES BLOG POST
2022 – : Sonic Territories: Wambuul, soundscape composition (with and without recorded spoken word poems), a waveform video of the soundscape composition, shared online stories, and a soundwalk, NSW
Sonic Territories: Wambuul, is a collaborative, multi-staged river stories project celebrating the Wambuul Macquarie River of Central West NSW through sound, stories, soundwalks and other creative forms (a waveform video was created for accessibility purposes). Stage 1 works (2022) were released on World Rivers Day, 25 September 2022—a series of short texts and soundscapes developed by the collaborating artists. A live performance of the work, Wambuul bila was performed at an Originals Only Afternoon hosted by the Outback Writers’ Centre at the Western Plains Cultural Centre (Dubbo), on 23 October 2022. A guided soundwalk of the Wambuul Macquarie was held on 28 August 2022, documented by videographer, Milena Sallustio. WATCH
Funded by the Country Arts Support Program through Orana Arts and additional funding through fundraising with the Australian Cultural Fund.
The soundscape component (without the spoken word element) of the Wambuul bila soundtrack was submitted and selected by a juror for the international ecoartspace publication, The New Geologic Epoch, published online in December 2023 and now available in hard copy.
A second stage of stories is planned for this project in future.
WAMBUUL BILA SOUNDTRACK
WAMBUUL STORIES
WAMBUUL SOUNDWALK
2021-2022 : Inhalare/ breathe upon, soundscapes, 150-word text and visual artworks in an exhibition with accessibility features including Audio Descriptions, audio recordings of text works and tactile elements, NSW
Inhalare/ breathe upon was a multi-stage project that aims to transform familiar landscapes into unfamiliar territories through sound, 150-word texts, and visual responses to the soundscapes and writings, along with a range of accessibility elements providing broader access to the work in the exhibition space. As project initiator, lead artist and project admin, I worked with 11 other artists from across Regional NSW. Stage 1 works consisted of creating soundscapes and 150-word texts (edited by Dr Liz Charpleix), Stage 2 saw visual artists are create visual responses to the soundscapes and texts, and Stage 3 was the design and implementation of accessibility elements for the exhibition including Audio Descriptions of the visual artworks by the visual artists, recordings of the text works by the writers, and in some cases, the production tactile elements. Stage 3 was undertaken in consultation with disability consultant and gallery director, Allison Reynolds, with an exhibition held at social enterprise gallery, SPACE in Coonabarabran, 15 May – 16 June 2022. My contributions to the group exhibition can be heard and read below. The project received funding from Create NSW (COVID Development Grants), fundraising through the Australian Cultural Fund and Regional Arts Fund Cultural Tourism Accelerator (Experience Initiative).
2019 – 2022: Pulse of the Wetland/ Mosses and Marshes, sound/video installations, writings, audio stories, public programs, project publication, and exhibition works with Andrew Howe (UK), NSW and England
Pulse of the Wetland is my contribution to the international Mosses and Marshes project, investigating the dynamic ecological rhythms of the Macquarie Marshes as they recover from prolonged drought and fire. Using historical and academic research, on-site documentation using sound and video, and community stories, the artworks developed from the project weave community stories into a body of digital works – video and soundscapes. Mosses and Marshes was initiated as a collaboration in partnership with UK-based artist, Andrew Howe. The Mosses and Marshes works were shown in six exhibitions—three in the UK and three in Australia, consisting of a mix of 2D and sculptural works by Howe and audio-visual works, including collaborative video and sound works, by me. A book about the project was published by the artists in late 2021. There has been an extensive public program designed around the exhibitions, including sound walks, an international panel event in partnership with Dubbo Regional Council, artist talks and workshops. The project received funding from Regional Arts Fund (Quicks), Create NSW, Australian Cultural Fund fundraising, and Arts Council England.
MORE INFORMATION
SOUNDCLOUD PLAYLIST
MORE SOUND AND VIDEOS
UN-BOXING: INTERNATIONAL TOURING EXHIBITION – (Arts) Territory Exchange works including a set of Mosses and Marshes postcards by Goldsmith and Howe
2019-2021: Eye of the Corvus, video, sound & VR installation, Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo NSW + Outback Arts Creative Centre, Coonamble NSW
Eye of the Corvus: Messenger of Truth consists of room-sized landscape montages from Australia and Iceland, and intimate video projections of an Australian dust storm and Icelandic snowstorm, with accompanying multi-track soundscapes and narratives, as well as an immersive VR video of the landscapes of rural and remote NSW and northern Iceland. The exhibition was the result of a two-year research and production project extensively documented over this time on a dedicated website. This was a Western Plains Cultural Centre commissioned exhibition, curated by Kent Buchanan, Dubbo Regional Council. The 2-month residency at Nes Artist Residency, Iceland was self-funded. The video, Dust Storm of the Waagan (narrated by Auntie Di McNaboe) won the Fishers Ghost Contemporary Arts Award in 2020.
2019: Sonic Territories: Kandos, sound walk, Cementa 2019, NSW
Five 2-3 minute fictional sonic narratives, inspired by historical and contemporary events in and around spaces and places in Kandos NSW that have undergone much change over the past 100 years. The mult-track mixes were created using field recordings from each site with found and manipulated sounds, including loops and archival material. For Cementa 19, the work was hosted on the international cultural audio tour app, izi.TRAVEL. Full details are on the project page. This work was part of the Andrew Frost curated show, Here and Not Here. Also available for listening as one track on Soundcloud.
2019: Within walking distance (collaborative work with Andrew Howe, UK), digital prints, part of the Arts Territory Exchange group exhibition, “Put this in your window and think of me”, Cambridge UK
Series of digital photographs presented as A2 sized giclée prints created from exchanged photos from walking routes close to home, with identified palette differences through pixelation, determined by light, season and climatic conditions, named with references to “Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours”. Curated for the Arts Territory Exchange by Art Language Location around the themes of land, ownership, property, common land and rural-urban tensions.
2017/2018: Fictional Territories #01, collaborative soundscape, 12’00 loop, Arts Territory Exchange, NSW, Germany and UK
Through the recording and exchange of sound sketches in Australia and Germany, a meditative soundscape was developed via distance-collaboration with Didi Hock (Germany), to produce a layered piece of sonic fiction that creates a new space to explore with the imagination. Designed to be simply installed with headphones and a simple ‘user manual’ suggesting how to prepare to listen to the work, Fictional Territories #01, is the first of what the artists imagine to be a series of fictional soundscapes. The work was installed at Charles Sturt University Dubbo campus in February 2018 and Westminster Reference Library, London in late 2018 in an (Arts) Territory Exchange curated exhibition.
2016: Volucres, soundscape and 3-channel video projection, 5’20 on loop, 2016 Artlands National Regional Arts Festival, NSW
Installed at Artlands 2016 in a church hall, Volucres is an immersive work. A looped soundtrack of piano chords and hard-edged synth is layered with Australian native birdsong recordings and sound effects (rain and thunder), accompanied by large-scale abstracted, monochromatic, avian-inspired movements of murmurations, unfolding wingspans, animated birds and falling feathers. The work was developed over six months in collaboration with sound engineer, Wez Thompson, and video producer, Peter Aland. This work was funded by Regional Arts NSW.
kvgoldsmithart.com 