By Parker McKenzie
Outside the Selby Community House, a new sound art installation highlighting the mythological connections of birds and children with angels, totems, ghosts and spirits has been built.
Artist Peter Mcilwain’s Bird Child Spirit artwork is a sound installation through a patch of bushland, where the sounds of children imitating birds are heard as you walk across a short trail.
Mr Mcilwain said the sounds were recorded in a workshop with local children at the Birdsland Environmental Education Centre.
“We had one child, she’s aged eight, and her mother didn’t really know that she was musical. I went through the breathing exercises and put some sounds up on a whiteboard, and said now I want you to follow what I do and just imitate that,” he said.
“She was just brilliant at it, her mother was sitting there saying I didn’t know you could do that.”
Bird Child Spirit, which launched on March 6, is running until April 19 from 9am to 9pm every day on the Wombalana Track, Selby Community House.
Mr Mcilwain, who guides soundwalks at Birdsland Reserve, said he expanded on his experience in sound design and music composition for the artwork.
“I’ve been thinking about doing a long, five-year project in the Dandenong Ranges,” he said.
“This is the starting point for it and it dovetails in with the soundwalks.”
Mr Mcilwain coded the reoccurring bird sounds himself, so no two walks along the trail are the same. He said he hopes to tour the artwork regionally throughout Victoria.
The project has been supported by Yarra Ranges Council through the Art Attack program, with the recording of the bird sounds being contributed by local children.
Selby Community House is Located at 2/1 Minak Road, Selby.
