Research Background
Gubbi Gubbi Gun’doo Yang’ga’man is a research and reconstruction project initiated by Lyndon Davis (Kabi Kabi) that saw the skills and traditions of bark canoe making reinstated by Kabi Kabi people. Beeyali Canoe Tree revisits the site of the Kabi Kabi canoe to create an audio-visual work in response to the scar tree. Lyndon’s art represents his deep connection to Country and is inspired by the geometrical patterns found in nature. Davis has been making work that visualises the acoustic ecology of Kabi Kabi Country using cymatics, the science of visualising acoustic energy, in collaboration with Leah Barclay and Tricia King. These explorations bring together emerging technologies with Indigenous knowledge to find new ways to inspire conservation.
Research Contribution
Beeyali Canoe Tree is an audio-visual work that draws on detailed photography of the scar tree and contact microphones that were used to create recordings of the tree inside the canoe scar, including Davis interacting with the tree, merging the sounds of his body with the tree. The audio was then played through the images to create a unique audio-visual work demonstrating ecological interconnection, interwoven with recordings of Davis singing Kabi Kabi songs. The project reveals interconnectedness and offers audiences an embodied way to connect to place and inspire care and respect for our surrounding environment.
Research Significance
This work is the first digital acquisition of the UniSC Art Gallery and commissioned through ‘The Contemporaries’ with support of the De Deyne Family, to coincide with the Djagan Yaman, Davis’s first major solo exhibition. Beeyali Canoe Tree was the first major work commissioned for the public screens in City Hall with Sunshine Coast Council and was exhibited for three months with high public engagement. The work featured internationally in the 2023 programme of ‘Ecological Imaginaries’ at Schumacher College in the UK. In 2024, a series of stills from Beeyali Canoe Tree were commissioned and fabricated as permanent large-scale screens for UniSC's Thompson Institute.