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Chua + Chester
Sastrugi - Sounds of the Antarctic Sea Ice
Theatre Royal Studio, Entry via The Hedberg, corner of Campbell &, 29 Campbell Street, Collins St, Hobart
Performance schedule:
Sastrugi - Process Sharing
Fri 23 Feb 6:00PM
60 min
Sastrugi - Sounds of the Antarctic Sea Ice
Saturday Feb 24th 6:00PM
60 min
Artists
Sean Minhui Tashi Chua
Diana Chester
Sastrugi - Process Sharing
Artists will detail their process of capturing data, sonification and the visualisations involved in this cross disciplinary project.
Sastrugi - Sounds of the Antarctic Sea Ice
This project combines the techniques of sonification, field recording, and musique concrète to craft captivating and immersive soundscapes that narrate the poignant tale of vanishing sea ice in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. In the face of a record-breaking year for Antarctic sea ice
in 2023, this project emerges as a timely and vital testament to the Earth's ever-changing climate.
“Sea ice serves as both a reflective mirror and a revealing window to our world, we're thrilled to craft art that brings its transient beauty into focus.”
- Sean Minhui Tashi Chua
Biographies:
Sean Minhui Tashi Chua is a scientist and artist based in Nipaluna / Hobart creating research, tools and artworks that span the fields of earth science, data sonification and machine learning. Chua has implemented machine learning techniques for snow cover mapping in the Himalaya, taught a 'Hearing Data' workshop for Melbourne sound school and exhibited audio visual works on drought affected landscapes at Adspace gallery. DJing as 'Big Data' his performances often serve as an outlet to recontextualise his experiences of data and earth science in a playful yet challenging style.
Diana Chester is an artist and sound studies scholar whose work produces critically influential studies, methods, and outputs that use sound to traverse disciplinary boundaries using feminist, de-colonial, and post anthropocentric approaches to thinking and making. Recent exhibitions
include, “Celestial Stories” Smithsonian, National Mall, USA (2023), “Light Echoes” Sydney Observatory, Australia (2023), “ZAAG” Funkhaus, Mongolia (2023), “Sub_Merge” Atlantic Center for the Arts, USA (2023), “Living Landscapes Living Memories” Smithsonian, USA (2022). Chester
is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Sydney, and vice president of the World Listening Project.
Funding credits/sponsors
RAWspace x Mona Foma is supported by MONA, Events Tasmania, City Of Hobart and The Theatre Royal
Australian Antarctic Program Partnership
Thank you
Petra Heil, Natalie Tizi
A festival in lutruwita
Mona Foma has no permanent physical home. The festival functions as a site-specific enterprise across the island, clustered around its biggest cities in summer but tied to no single place. In this sense, like its seasonal cycle, the festival is ephemeral: a passing celebration of art, music and so forth. But held on land already steeped in thousands of years of Aboriginal culture.
No matter the sites we use for our festival in nipaluna (Hobart) and Launceston, or along the Midlands, our presence here is founded on a colonial structure, a system built on invasion of this place and dispossession of its people. It is clearly a contradiction to acknowledge that the land we hold our festival on was never ceded while continuing to use it, rent it from non-traditional owners, and invite festival-goers to meet us there.
This has to mean something, beyond mere lip-service on a website. Which is why, notwithstanding our contradictions, it is important we work to uncover the truth of our past to make sense of the world we live in now. And the truth is:
lutruwita (Tasmania) was taken from the traditional owners of the land through brutal force and invasion. This Country was never ceded;
pakana are the continuing custodians of lutruwita (Tasmania). Their Ancestors, Elders, and ongoing connection to Country deserve our respect.
We ask to be held to account, and ultimately judged on our actions. This will always be a work in progress. And hopefully bring Mona Foma a real connection to this spectacular place, where laykila (North Esk River), plipatumila (South Esk River) and kanamaluka (River Tamar) meet as three rivers in the north; and to the south, where timtumili minanya (River Derwent) laps beneath proud kunanyi (Mount Wellington).