I have been thinking about the creative process and the conversation that takes place between artist and audience or viewer, reader, listener as the case may be. In a performance this can feel like a more straightforward exchange with ideas, energy and emotion flowing back and forth between the performer(s) and the audience. But what happens when an artwork is created and then left somewhere – consciously – for people to experience at another time. What is the desired message or effect? And will it be signalled successfully? Does it matter? 

This has all been stirred within me by the extraordinary human, activist and artist Nunami Sculthorpe-Green. Nunami was born into a life of activism and resistance through her mother’s and sister’s ongoing fight for Aboriginal justice. Being part of the community around protests and hearing her family speak up in this context was part of her world growing up. Then she found her creative voice through mentoring from producer Annette Downs and writer and director Sarah Hamilton. The resultant storytelling tour takara nipaluna / walking Hobart may be familiar to Ten Days’ audiences from the 2021 program. 

She is compelled to tell those stories that have to be told and has recently been exploring the visual medium that allows her to layer cultural coding and different levels of meaning into her work but offers spaciousness for the viewer. Paradoxically, she finds visual art more vulnerable as an artist as she must leave her work with no control over the experience of the viewer. After such an inner personal journey to create the work, she cannot bear witness to the effect or impact of the piece. How can you find deep connection without standing together with community on country and with an audience? 

As we look ahead to Ten Days in 2027, we are standing alongside Nunami in her journey around the island to harvest and gather seasonal knowledge and organic materials. These will be used to create a sound work that echoes its own country, the land from which it came. Starting with country as her primary source material, this is a profound piece of consultation and research alongside artistic experimentation that will offer different levels of experience for Nunami’s community and audiences. 

We are so excited to support her in this new storytelling venture, engaging not only with the final physical form of the work but the significant exploration and process along the way. 

Additional Reading List 

John Berger, Ways of Seeing, Penguin Modern Classics (2009)

Adam Thompson, Born Into This, University of Queensland Press (2021)

Jordan Abel, Carleigh Baker, and Madeleine Reddon (Editors), Carving Space: The Indigenous Voices Awards Anthology, A Collection of Prose and Poetry from Emerging Indigenous Writers in Lands Claimed by Canada, Penguin Random House (2023)

Ian Terry, Uninnocent Landscapes, An Artist’s Own Book (2023) 

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