This page provides an overview of my work and projects. For much of 2020-2022, the focus has been on projects on the ecoPULSE.art website. Media coverage of my work is on the ecoPULSE.art media page.
2022-23: Projects in progress
Sonic Territories: Wambuul, 2022—
Sonic Territories: Wambuul, is a collaborative, multi-staged river stories project celebrating the Wambuul/ Macquarie River through sound, stories, soundwalks and other forms of creativity. Stage 1 works 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 is being performed at the Originals Only Afternoon, on 23 October 2022, thanks to the Outback Writers Centre. Funded by the Country Arts Support Program through Orana Arts and additional funding through fundraising with the Australian Cultural Fund.
Regional Futures: Vaticinor, 2022—
Regional Futures: Vatcinor is my project for the Statewide Regional Futures project exploring the future of the regions. I was commissioned by Dubbo Regional Council, who are a partner in Regional Future through Orana Arts. Vaticinor is the project I developed for my participation in the cross-region conversation between the Central West and Mid North Coast, specifically looking at the 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 group exhibition at Manning Regional Art Gallery has been scheduled for March-May 2023. Stage 1 has been funded by the Regional Arts Network through Create NSW, Orana Arts, and Dubbo Regional Council.
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.
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. 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). MORE INFORMATION
Callitris glaucophylla
Shimmering, pollen-laden Callitris glaucophylla jostle on the stony slope; muddy macropod tracks slice through this peri-urban thicket.
A plane drones above a discordant song of woodland birds and dam-born frogs; crepitations of the multi-trunked mother tree pierced by whining, winter-born mosquitos.
Swollen ankles swaddled in leggy greens on a damp bed of bleached needles and broken limbs—a blanket below naked crowns outlined against Argentine blue.
Deeply furrowed bark encases fragrant heartwood; girths not covered in dry moss—fake turf-like to the touch—are callused with lichens.
An unheard world thrums and gurgles, dependent on this dark, cool copse. Opportunistic ticks, weaving spiders, woolly aphids cling to microscopic pine scales while fungi fairy rings cast their crepuscular glow in fading light.
Shy opera singer of the bush, the Rufous Whistler calls time. Hidden in a darkening maze of branches above, its soaring song and whip-cracking notes follow me home.
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)
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 works created for the Mosses and Marshes exhibitions—three in the UK and three in Australia, are 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
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
The body of work in Eye of the Corvus is a series 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 on a dedicated website. This was a Western Plains Cultural Centre exhibition, curated by Kent Buchanan, Dubbo Regional Council. Video, Dust Storm of the Waagan (narrated by Auntie Di McNaboe), won the Fishers Ghost Contemporary Arts Award in 20220. MORE INFORMATION
2019: Sonic Territories: Kandos, sound walk, Cementa 2019
Five 2-3 minute sonic narratives, designed to be fictional but 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 8-10 track mixes were created using field recordings from each site with found and manipulated sound including loops and archival material. For Cementa, 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.
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
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, Artlands 2016
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.
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