Everyday Ecologies

Everyday Ecologies T he Tarragindi Reserve Experience

F ield Guide Lenine Bourke

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Acknowledgements We pay our respects to the Yagara (Yuggera) people and to their Elders past and present. We recognise them as the sovereign owners of the land we gather on today.

We acknowledge their sovereignty of this land, that has never been ceded. We also pay our respects to the lore makers, the artists, the culture men, women and genders different. We pay our respects to the mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers who had their babies stolen from their arms. We pay our respects to the fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers who worked for stolen wages. We pay our respects to the traditional and sovereign owners of these lands which were stolen.

Always was always will be Aboriginal Land.

Lenine Bourke would like to personally acknowledge the time and generosity Gaja/Aunty Kerry Charlton shared with her and her daughter recently. Gaja/Aunty Kerry is a First Nation person, Elder and Traditional Owner: Go’enpul & Djandewal of Yagarabul country and Tjerangeri (Stradbroke Islands), Quandamooka (Moreton Bay), Ngunda/Undambi, north neighbour Kabi Kabi country and Walangama of North Queensland. Gaja denotes eldership/seniority, Aunty a modern version.

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Welcome Thank you for joining us today, alongside all that lives in this forest and all that visits.

This work has been created through a PhD study looking at the ways we learn together. I was led through a series of circumstances to work with this forest and to meet the plants, trees, birds, worms, creek, and humans that visit. I undertook a 5-week long residency with this place.

At its most foundational, this work is about what it means to be nature. It also explores what it means to be with multispecies and understand their sensory lives. This is something First Nations people have done for tens of thousands of years and something many non-indigenous people still ignore, regardless of scientists and storytellers trying to persuade them.

Dr Robin Kimmerer said when lichen was placed in labs growing in perfect conditions, they gave each other the cold shoulder. But when placed under stressful circumstances they leaned in and needed each other for survival.

All of nature, including humans, are under extremely stressful circumstances and we need to lean in. We and our loved ones cannot survive without protecting every part of nature, animal, mineral and vegetable around us; likewise, they cannot survive without also protecting us. This mutual relationship was cognitive. Now it has become sensorily embedded. This is the offering of this work.

Today we will speculate together, talk together, wonder together, listen together and walk together.

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The Meeting Point The experience begins at the meeting point. The wooden amphitheatre around the fire pit where humans have been meeting since the beginning.

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We need artists to reimagine the world we will live in.

Dr Elizabeth Boulton, an academic in Canberra, wrote an article in 2016. She said we need “to explore the emerging idea that global warming exceeds modern humans’ cognitive and sensory abilities. To overcome this impasse, climate communication needs to engage people at a philosophical, sensory and feeling level. People need to be able to feel and touch the new climate reality; to explore unfamiliar emotional terrain and be helped to conceive their existence differently. Under the global Future Earth initiative, a team of around 60,000 scientists and social scientists has been assembled to understand and report on the physical, tangible dimensions of the problem.

I argue we need 60,000 arts and humanities experts to focus upon the intangibles – the communication, engagement and meaning-making aspects of the problem.

How is this to be done? The world must turn to its artists: storytellers, film-makers; musicians; painters and multimedia wizards, to name a few.”

Read the full article, It’s time for a new age of Enlightenment: why climate change needs 60,000 artists to tell its story at: https://theconversation.com/its-time-for-a-new-age-ofenlightenment-why-climate-change-needs-60-000-artiststo-tell-its-story-58774

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Epochs Earth’s history is divided into a hierarchical series of smaller chunks of time, referred to as the geologic time scale. These divisions, in descending length of time, are called eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages.

Officially, the current epoch is called the Holocene, which began 11,700 years ago after the last major ice age.

The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/anthropocene/ 9

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How to use this f ield guide...

These books are for us all to share. Read the invitations to visit and explore five sites and five senses. Record your experience in this book.

Write notes, draw images, document what you see and what it makes you feel, think and sense.

Each book will be shared with the next group of people who engage in this experience. It’s like a collection of how we were all walking together.

Attune to the moment Attune to the environment Attune to your senses Attune to each other and all that is around you 11

5 Sites & 5 Senses

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“I sit under the canopy I immediately want to sleep.”

“That vine changed my mind – for the first week of the residency I was overcome with a troubling feeling, that involved this vine and after learning about vines of Moreton Bay I came to understand how trees and vines were growing together. As part of this forest’s complex multispecies ecology.”

“I can’t believe they are cutting this tree down, its so loud when the branches smash into the ground, even the kindy kids are watching.”

“Why do you think those people have built their houses that way, it literally turns their back on the forest.”

“Excuse me wattle tree, but do you mind if I take some of your blossoms? We are using them to see if we can make yellow paint.”

“Is that taro growing in there?”

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Sensory world of trees “Although trees have many of the senses that we do, and some we don’t, the sensory organs and mechanisms are different. Trees can smell other trees and other organisms, for example, even though they lack a nose.

Here are some things that trees can do that you may not know about.

• Smelling/tasting • Hearing • Feeling (touch, not emotions) • Seeing - trees have an exquisite sense of vision through photoreceptors; they can see wavelengths that we can’t, including infrared and ultraviolet; they can detect subtle and sudden changes in light energy that we don’t notice; and they can respond to individual photons.

• Measuring - trees are constantly monitoring and measuring their environment, they can measure: • Time to milliseconds; • Light direction, shadows; • Gravity direction, intensity; • Magnetic fields;” Tom Kimmerer https://kimmerer.com/sensory-world-of-trees 15

Site 1 Compost heap

In the reserve there is a pile of waste - natural, recycled and human made - just behind the Scout Hall, but not as far as the artist studios or Max and the ‘Wild Things’. It is alongside a little bush track that will take you down to the small cement path.

Why is it here? Who tends to it? What is it used for? Is it going to decompose?

During your experience you are encouraged to consider not only this above ground pile of waste, but to consider what lays below it. Not just soil but a massive interconnected network of fungus, which is made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium.

This underground network serves plants in many ways, from food and survival systems to communication and kinships. These knowledges are new-ish to colonial science systems, but have been part of the First Nation peoples’ knowledge and science systems for tens of thousands of years.

What would a decomposing forest smell like? Are we afraid of stenches?

Or changes in smells?

What scents make you feel sick? Can we smell when soil needs care form us?

What scents are we all responding to? Can we smell the emotions of the plants around us?

What memories do you have of being with soil?

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T he invitation for today Please settle into this space, enjoy the experimental nature of the site and allow the scent to bring any memory to you.

Get your hands dirty and experiment with the tools, samples and resources available here. Mix up your own compost compositions, potions, concoctions or soil combinations.

Smell everything as you go.

Use the mortar and pestle, garlic crusher, grinders, water, sieve, rocks, hammer, soaking devices, grater — anything that is needed — to enhance the olfactory experience with the ecological offerings already found on the ground, not tethered to life anymore but part of the decomposition of this place.

Feel free to leave your experiments here for other people to use. Your sense of smell will be your strongest memory of this experience anyway.

Did you know humans can smell approximately 1 trillion smells?

We just don’t have the languages to describe them.

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Site 2 Tree touch

There are two locations as part of this experience.

Little Cement Track - The first is along the little cement track where two trees are seemingly hugging each other, in what looks like a loving act of consent. Different coloured barks and different formations, when did they start growing together? Did they both consent? How did they communicate with each other? How do the other trees feel about this? Also, if you look closely to the right, you can see two more couples of the same trees in the exact same positions.

Large Cement Track - The second location is along the wide cement path, where there is a natural bench seat on the edge of the path made from cement. You can see a group of trees, a few have died and a few are alive, and they are covered in a vine known as silkpod or monkey rope (Parsonsia straminea). This vine is native.

What is the relationship between this vine and these trees? Is it helping create a canopy? Is it stopping erosion? Is it food for other creatures? How did the vine come to be so enmeshed with the trees? How do the trees feel about this? How do you feel about it? How is this observation different from the last location?

How do trees negotiate touch? How can we negotiate touch with plants?

When we cut them down what happens? When we brush past them what do they feel?

How do you feel touch? How do you think a tree feels touch? How do you give your consent to be touched? How could a tree give its consent to be touched?

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T he invitation for today After observing the above locations and contemplating the relationships between these trees, please talk about these different experiences with the people you are walking with today. Discuss how have you touched plants before? What does this mean now? How can we live with plants in ways that our touch helps growth? Is that always possible?

Research suggests that sometimes touch can be beneficial towards plants; other times it can be harmful. Touching a plant triggers their hormones response and can change their gene expression. Touches are vastly different for each plant, depending on their nature — consider a gentle pat versus an insect eating a leaf or sprinkling water.

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Site 3

This whole place was once called the Sandy Creek Area. Now the creek runs through backyards and under roads.

Turtles no longer swim here.

Sandy creek

“Walking back from Sandy Creek I saw one of the largest worms I have ever seen in my life.

Originally, I thought it was some type of pale snake. At least 4 times the length of my adult foot. I called to the kookaburras but none of them came for lunch.”

“When I grew up around here, the creek was free flowing and had massive turtles in it.”

“The creek has tripled in size with this rain”

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T he invitation for today What would the creek sound like under water? Take the long cement track to the very end (if you reach the bridge, you have gone too far), take the last little bush track off to the right to find the most accessible part of Sandy Creek. There you can listen.

Hear the sound installation created by Lawrence English of what the Sandy Creek really sounds like.

Did you know humans can hear approximately 350,000 different tones? What sounds do creeks make? What is audible to the human ear? Or other animals’ listening systems?

As you’re listening you can also notice the tallest and oldest fern in the Creek (hint, look downstream).

What does the precariousness of this creek feel like? What are you experiencing by just listening? What are your memories about creeks? What will future generations remember about creeks?

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Notes

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“One morning I looked up waiting to meet the riot of kookaburras that greeted me every day. And I couldn’t see any of them, but just above me I saw a tawny frog mouth, enjoying the morning sun.

This bird is there almost every morning I arrive and now it has become a ritual to welcome the day together. Aunty Kerry Charlton told me much later on that it’s likely the tawny frogmouths have their entire family across the forest, I’m yet to meet the family.”

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Site 4 Seeing what a tree sees

How would you see yourself through the lens of a tree?

Do you think of how a whole forest of trees and plants would notice you?

T he invitation for today Take a small clipboard, paper, and pencil and sketch the abstract image that you think a tree would see, when they see you. Remember they can see the difference between dark and light, yellow, and blue light.

Animals and plants have photoreceptors which help us all to see. Eyes create a more complex way to see, whereas plants “have photoreceptors, which are proteins that are specially designed to perceive light and signal certain biological effects in the plant.” (https://study.com/academy/lesson/plantphotoreceptors-definition-types-function.html) Some humans barley notice the subtle differences in trees, but “they adjust rapidly to subtle changes in their environment that we would scarcely notice, such as the quick passing of a shadow over a leaf, or minute changes in the angle of a branch.

Trees also have senses that we lack. They can instantly detect changes in gravity, so that bending a branch produces a rapid growth response. They can see parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as infrared and ultraviolet, that we cannot.”

(Tom Kimmerer https://kimmerer.com/what-trees-know/) Humans can see between 2-7 million different colours.

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Site 5 Tasting this place How do trees and plants eat?

What does their root system bring to them from the ground?

How do the roots move around to secure water and nutrients?

Who helps young plants know how to survive?

Who taught you about eating from plants and nature?

How does that sit with you now?

What does our knowledge or lack of knowledge about growing food and foraging for food mean about our futures?

How would you eat if you were a tree?

What plants do you eat already?

Are they from the area you live?

T he invitation for today Everyone will meet back near the campfire to experience a tasting composition and to share some plant-based food with each other. Not everything will be local to this area, as times change and colonisation has greatly impacted the area. However, using all of our 5 senses is part of today’s experience.

During this time, there are logs for resting and talking, or for sharing your observations and experiences of the Reserve with each other.

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Found Objects In the Reserve there are objects and things. Some of these things are the remains of a tree cut down in our presence. Others are the presence of humans in this forest for a long time.

What can you find that is not meant to be here?

Please collect these in the small bags provided.

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Research-creation From the residency Because this work has grown out of a PhD study, there are some specific images that really influenced the nature of this new work. They are shared below.

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Snippets of relevant research anthropomorphize: 1. attribute human characteristics or behaviour to (a god, animal, or object). “people’s tendency to anthropomorphize their dogs” Bangladesh is often called the “Land of Rivers” and the Supreme Court echoed this sentiment in July 2019, when it determined that all 700 rivers have standing to sue those who harm them in court. Giving nature legal rights is not a novel idea. Indigenous populations have given nature rights in their customary law for centuries past. https://earth.org/should-nature-have-legal-rights/ Rewilding is a form of environmental conservation and ecological restoration that has significant potential to increase biodiversity, create self-sustainable environments and mitigate climate change. Rewilding aims to do this by reintroducing lost animal species to natural environments. It is an exciting and promising conservation strategy aimed at restoring natural processes and wilderness areas, providing connectivity between such areas, and reintroducing large herbivores, predators and/or keystone species. https://truenaturefoundation.org/what-is-rewilding/

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Ecology, or ecological science, is the scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and how the distribution and abundance are affected by interactions between the organisms and their environment. https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/ecology.htm

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“Hey can we take these coloured ropes down?

I’m worried this means the trees are going to be cut down.

I really don’t want to see any of these trees cut down, it would ruin my life”

“Connections grow, as connections are made”

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About the hut The new mural is inspired by the friendly monsters of the children’s classic “Where The Wild Things Are”. Commissioned artist Gimiks Born, is covering the former Girl Guide Hall and Hut 13 at Tarragindi Reserve – currently being used as artist studios by Jugglers Art Space Inc. The mural was designed to cover the walls with Friendly Monsters that will inhabit, enliven, and inspire Tarragindi Reserve.

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“Encountering the humans and all the animals happened the more I was with the forest and the creek” “It seems we always run into people, that I don’t know, but my victors know.”

“The new apartments being built over the old bowls club is really going to change this place, I think.”

“If you get stuck weaving, don’t worry just take a breath and try something else.”

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Credits & Thankyou Aunty Kerry Charlton – For her support and generosity Nathan Stoneham – Design, digital media, and creative support Chelsea Chua – Production support Lawrence English – Field recordings Damion Sheridan - Videography Jacki McKean and Jane Jennison – Weaving Jodie Cherry - Installation support.

Jugglers Arts Space: special thanks to Bridie Gillman,

Alexandra Perestrelo and Peter Breen The Paint Factory: Paul Hey Scouts: Thanks to Simon and Damien Childcare: Thanks to Katie and her team Supervision: Linda Knight and Susan Chapman Childcare: Lyn Bourke, Tegan Bourke, Ryan Muller,

Kate Richmond, Laina Lay, Karen Batten,

Dimitri Niotakis, Riley Rocco, Leigh Coonan,

Jane Jennison, Jacki McKean, Shelli Mac Thank you to the diversity of artists and scholars who work in public pedagogy and in early childhood pedagogies, with a nondevelopmental focus. This new work has been informed by common worlds pedagogies and ghosting pedagogies.

Thanks to everyone that visited, and walked with me, wove with me, talked with me and gave me lots of guidance and support.

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