NATURE FESTIVAL, ALINYTJARA WILURARA LANDSCAPE BOARD, COUNTRY NEEDS PEOPLE, ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE, GREEN ADELAIDE, INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL & TANDANYA PRESENT
On Friday 25 September, join us for a profound evening of art, music, and dialogue.
Exhibition Space Open from 4.30pm
Exhibition Opening from 5.30pm
// Welcome to Country and Formalities at 6pm //
Panel Talk 6.30pm
Electric Fields Music Performance 7.30pm
Panel Talk
Join MC Taigen Ryan and speakers Zibeon Fielding, Yankunytjatjara community leader and buffel grass advocate from Mimili in the APY Lands; buffel grass researcher Camille Dobson; and Tandanya CEO Brenz Saunders for a timely conversation bringing together voices from culture, science, land management and community. Together, they will explore the ecological and cultural impacts of buffel grass, the urgent action required, and how collaborative approaches can help protect Country.
Electric Fields Live Set
Experience a special live set from Electric Fields, the multi-award-winning electronic-soul duo celebrated for bringing living First Nations culture, language and storytelling to stages across Australia and internationally—including representing Australia at Eurovision in 2024. Featuring the soaring vocals of Zaachariaha Fielding and the music of producer Michael Ross, their performance brings a deeply personal dimension to Silent Country: Zaachariaha grew up in Mimili in the APY Lands, where buffel grass is transforming the Country, culture and community at the heart of this event.
Exhibition
Experience Silent Country through a group exhibition of works exploring buffel grass, environmental change and our evolving relationship with landscape. Through visual art, sound, moving image, textiles, sculpture and interdisciplinary practice, selected artists invite curiosity, reflection and deeper conversation, accompanied by speeches offering further insight into the ecological and cultural realities the exhibition brings into view.
Presentation partner Tandanya has curated an incredibly powerful group of First Nations artists whose works bring personal, cultural and place-based perspectives to the Silent Country exhibition. A number of contributing artists were also undertook a printmaking workshop with artist Damien Warman at Stone and Quoin Studio, developing new work in response to buffel grass and its impacts on Country.
Badimia/Yamatji artist Anna Dowling works across ink, painting and mixed media, using dense, accumulative patterns to explore Country, cultural continuity and the ongoing effects of colonisation. Alongside an existing work that considers systems of disruption and displacement, Anna will present new work developed through the Stone and Quoin workshop.
Brooke Rigney is a proud Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna musician, multidisciplinary artist and advocate whose culturally informed practice brings together story, lived experience, healing and cultural survival, grounded in enduring connections to Country and waters.
Port Augusta based artist Sandra Taylor, a Yankunytjatjara, Pitjantjatjara, Kokatha and Arrernte woman, draws on an artistic journey that began in Coober Pedy. Her contribution is informed by her firsthand experience of buffel grass across the APY Lands and the lasting discomfort of witnessing its impact on Country.
Coober Pedy artist Evanna Williams grew up on the APY Lands and has family and cultural connections extending through the Northern Territory. Her work honours the beauty, stories and cultural significance held within Country, keeping those relationships alive through painting and new work developed during the printmaking workshop.
Colleen Raven (Strangways) is a proud Arabana and Mudbura Warlpiri woman and photographer committed to sharing stories through an Aboriginal lens. Her practice celebrates culture while passing photographic skills and knowledge to the next generation of emerging artists.
Image Credit: Artwork by Sandra Taylor and Anna Dowling's Snake Skin
Artists Damien Coulthard and Damien Warman will also exhibit work developed through an extended period of research and exchange with scientists, cultural knowledge holders and activists working in the buffel grass space. Their contributions bring artistic practice into conversation with lived experience, ecological research and on-ground advocacy, exploring how new work can deepen public understanding of buffel grass and its complex impacts on Country, culture and community.
This exhibition features visual artists from Tutti Arts who will present new works developed through research and exchange with scientists and field researchers, exploring Buffel grass's dire impact on Country, culture and biodiversity. Created in response to the themes of Silent Country, these works bring the artists’ distinctive perspectives to urgent questions of ecological change, care and the future of Country. Tutti artists participating in this research project and exhibition include: Lucia Birch, Banjobe Hunt, Charlie Taplin, Jacko Hooper, Megan Long, Nathan Dolphin and Nathan Smith.
Image Credit: Tutti Artist Jacko Hooper
Image Credit: Tutti Artist Jackie Saunders painting new work for Silent Country Exhibition
Want more?
Experience Silent Country through your senses with an intimate dinner experience at Tandanya that takes you deeper into the cultural and ecological impacts of buffel grass. Curated by Warndu with acclaimed chefs Matt Stone and Shannon Fleming, this remarkable menu celebrates native plants and food species under threat, inviting guests to taste the abundance of healthy Country—and understand what stands to be lost. Sunday 27th September.
For more information and tickets:
https://www.naturefestival.org.au/event/silent-country-dinner
