The current generation of Yindjibarndi elders reads from the biographies of their elders.  The Yindjibarndi are an indigenous group from the Pilbara region of North-Western Australia. This excerpt contains the voices of Karrie Monadie, MIddleton Cheedy and Michael Woodley.

This work contains references to Indigenous people who have passed away we pay our respects to them.

Era of the Elders - preview

The musical autobiography of one of the earliest vocal synths and its search for a body of its own.

The Parable Of Perfect Paul

*This work may contain the names and voices of people who have recently passed away. 

We pay our respects to the elders of the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi nations whose land this was produced on. 

Produced with Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation Era of the Elders is a pre-history of the Yindjibarndi’s recent land rights cases, told through the words of the elders who prepared the way for the successful native title ruling in 2021.

Narrated by Wendy Hubert 
Featuring the voices of:
Ashton Cheedy
Maisie Indjie
Kevin Gilby
Jane Cheedy
Middleton Cheedy
Lorraine Coppin
Michael Woodley
Stanley Warrie
Hayden Woodley
Alan Mack
Denzel Jacob
Alison Woodley
Wade Walker
Wimiya Woodley
Monique Mckenzie
Sharon Warrie
Marion Cheedy

Thanks to Vicki Webb

Era Of The Elders - Episode 1

The Marlaangu is a mysterious creature who lives on Yindjibarndi Country, he is a protector of the land but also a mischief maker. The Marlaangu Project collects three stories told in Yindjibarndi.

With Thanks to WImiya Woodley, Michael Woodley Lorraine Coppin, Frank Smith and Ricky Smith.

Full translation below

The Cake
You know that house over there, number 12, they have a room there that no one ever goes in. One day the family came in from town the father mother and little boy. 

The boy was asleep so they took him and put him on the lounge and the wife went in her room. And the man got the bags in from the car, he took a cake from the seat of the car and put it on the table. Then he went to get the rest of the shopping.

And when he came back he saw a big hand mark in the cake like someone had just grabbed a big chunk out of it. 

He asked his wife about it and she said “no, I’ve been in my room the whole time. I’m tired.” He asked the wife “where is the boy” and she said – “He’s asleep, he’s asleep.  They let the boy sleep, but in the morning they asked him. 

The man went to sleep and when he woke up he asked the boy “Did you grab the cake?”  

The boy said “Nah, I didn’t eat the cake, I was just sleeping”

The dad said “well who ate the cake?”

And the boy said “a man came and woke me up and held out his hand with some food in it “

“Are you alright? Are you hungry?  Here have some cake”

The boy woke up “Nah I don’t want a feed mate, I’m full, I just want to sleep, I’m tired”

And the father asked “Who is that man? Where did he go?”

And the boy said “in that room there” and he pointed to the empty room 

The father asked “What did he go in there for?”

“because that’s his room, he stays there” he came in through the window and went straight to that room”

And the mum told him “why is the man staying in there? 

And the boy said “I dunno but he lives in this house, in that room there. I see him all the time in that room”

And the father looked at the wife and the wife said

“The boy must be seeing the Marlaangu.”

And the boy said “ I dunno who that is, he just stays there, he’s there now, that’s where he lives”

The mother and father looked at each other and left the boy alone to go to sleep.

The Marlaangu Project - The Cake

Giants

The Puddle's Skin

Imagine that you are popping in and out of different minds. Not just seeing or hearing as they do but appearing briefly in the sense realm of each species with little chance to acclimatise to one before you are inside the next. Each space is coloured by the last as their precise speeds, logics and temporalities becoming nested within each other. So that when they recur it is with uncanny shifts.

Critical Flicker Frequencies

Pt. IV - Broca, Wernicke and Lebourgne (excerpt)

Pt. III - Each Person’s Shape Was Complete

Pt. II - Unfaithful Phonemes

The Motor Theory (excerpt)

Two people navigate their way through a transitional space, a space between borders, jurisdictions and states. Both psychological and literal this space is restricted by architecture and controlled by the hidden yet ever-present threat of discipline. 

This work was first performed live at km28 as part of the Mouthfeel no.2

The Queue

Artist and experimental musician. Recent works have taken lecture-performance, live story telling and rumour as their form and speculation itself as their subject matter. Making visible, audible and sensible hidden rules and conventions in order that we might imagine together how they might be reconfigured or exceeded.

Nathan Gray

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