NAIDOC Week celebrates and recognizes the history and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Here, Australia has an opportunity to reflect on the critical importance of First Nations knowledge systems in addressing many of the challenges in our world today.

Beeyali is a creative research project currently featured in the Djagan Yaman exhibition as part of NAIDOC week. The project began in Queensland to visualize wildlife calls using the science of sound visualization. Beeyali is a word from the Kabi Kabi peoples of southeast Queensland, which means “to call”. The project aims to sound the alarm for the multitude of vulnerable species on the brink of extinction in Australia.

Read more: Rediscovering the art of Tracker Nat: ‘the Namatjira of sculpture’

Beeyali was designed by Lyndon Davis, a Kabi Kabi man and artist whose works are in national and international collections. Working in collaboration with sound artist Leah Barclay and photographer Tricia King, Davis conceived Beeyali as a way to encourage communities to listen, connect with place, and share knowledge through new technologies.

The trio (who are also the authors of this article) first worked together on Listening in the Wild. It was a series of immersive soundscapes and photographs exploring how remote experiences of natural environments can encourage ecological empathy, cultural knowledge, and connection to place.

What are cymatics?

Beeyali was first commissioned as a large-scale projection work for NEW LIGHT 2021 – an Australian Network National Award for Art and Technology. This allowed us to experiment with cymatics, an interdisciplinary field studying the visual interpretation of sound.

Cymatics emerged from experiments by scientist Hans Jenny in the 1960s that generated distinctive, intricate patterns with sound on the plate when activated with sound waves. Jenny discovered connections between cymatics and the environment, with striking similarities between emergent geometric patterns and natural principles and patterns in ecosystems.

This evidence of ecological interconnectedness resonates strongly with some Indigenous peoples’ connection to the environment and was the initial inspiration for the Beeyali Project. This project has often been informed by Lyndon Davis’ belief that understanding these patterns is fundamental to human health and connection to country.

The most fascinating result of these experiments was the emergence of cultural symbols in the patterns. In the images below, the cockatoo’s feathers and eye become an undulating cymatic pattern where landscapes and trees have emerged in the imagery. Davis immediately referred to the four small trees at the top of the image as Bunyas – culturally significant trees of Kabi Kabi country.

In the following image, pulsating geomatic patterns responding to cockatoo calls resulted in patterns resembling the Kabi Kabi culture shield patterns.

The meeting of indigenous knowledge, science, creative practice and new technologies is at the heart of this ongoing collaboration. The work is on view at EVA London this week and is currently on display at Djagan Yaman, Davis’ first solo exhibition at the USC Art Gallery.

Our Beeyali project is growing, with a recent successful grant from the Australian Council for the Arts which will see the project expand to include the white-bellied sea eagle and the humpback whale – two culturally significant species on the country. by Kabi Kabi.

Recognize our ecological crisis

Disturbances and rapid environmental changes are becoming increasingly visible and audible in the planet’s ecosystems. There is still much to learn about how our planet’s ecosystems intersect and connect with each other.

We urgently need more effective ways to engage communities in conservation to tackle endangered species that risk going extinct if we don’t.

The NAIDOC 2022 theme “Arise! Rise! Happen!” calls for action and change. This must include addressing the loss of wildlife to colonization and the damage to the country and the ecosystems that reside there.

Beeyali champions First Nations cultural rights through self-determination and we have mutual respect for the ways in which we can authentically work together to heal the country. This interdisciplinary collaboration stems from a shared commitment that embodies the core values ​​of a place of trust, friendship and reciprocity.

Listening to the environment allows us to understand the patterns of place and can help us better connect with the land and its ecosystems.