Date: Wednesday 23 October
Time: 7pm
Listening to Water
Water is everywhere. It defines the very colour of our planet; on average, it makes up 60% of the human body. Yet, experts are repeatedly warning us that the world is running out of water. In this lecture, I explore this paradox through sound in an attempt to shift the manners in which we perceive and relate to water. Travelling from me to (my) others, I articulate and play with the vulnerable interface between (wet) theories and the (dry) realities of the Murray Mouth’s acoustic textures. My words speak of the harsh dialectics of drought and desertification, and yet, water shapes them as they crisscross pages and landscapes—I write in waves, to paraphrase philosopher Édouard Glissant. Only through those movements can we learn how to listen to (or hear again) the wet ontologies hidden behind the colonial veil of blue-green algae blooms, salt and the staccato pounding of the dredgers working hard to keep the Murray Mouth open.
Dr Camille Roulière is an early career researcher whose work explores how people engage and interact with their environment through art. She was recently awarded a Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence and a University Doctoral Research Medal for her PhD thesis entitled “Visions of Water in Lower Murray Country” (University of Adelaide/ Université de Caen-Normandie). Camille also works creatively with a variety of materials, from words and musical notes, through to glass and acrylics. Her work has been published in Angles, Southerly, Cordite Scholarly and an anthology within Routledge’s Environmental Humanities series. She is currently working on two monographs based on her PhD research and is the recipient of the 2019 Bill Cowan Barr Smith Library Fellowship.
Thinking through the Arts is a series of six public lectures on Wednesday evenings in the Hills, exploring the way different mediums and art forms think materially.
Thinking through the Arts is a collaboration between Fabrik and the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice.
Entry free but bookings essential via Eventbrite
