La Niña: Ten Stories

La Niña: Ten Stories

shape of a mouth in a cloud
strange feeling, sitting ducks

the world is slowing folding
can’t pretend things aren’t getting worse

flooding burrows, displaced wombats’ hair loss
ringing shot, bury the mother roo with pneumonia 

painting chose for guerrilla protest
price of lettuce at 500%

unconvincing, bush fire royal commission
recommendations, First Nations land management 

mosquitos buzz in damp night air 
houses lit watching the football

old rivers churn in the sky
cities turn into islands

nursing home evacuated for the third time
neighbours panicked, looking for a dog

senseless racist violence, cries for justice 
waves of grief, moon is blood on stolen land

black cockatoos call across the gaping river
as floodwaters slowly recede

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Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (South East Queensland) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. Their latest book Throat (UQP, 2020) recently won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

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Bundanon’s annual presentation of environmental research projects and public programs has a decade-long history.  In 2022, Siteworks is presenting a family of projects that draw on climate research, critical thinking through contemporary art, creative digital spaces, and Indigenous knowledge and technologies.

The starting point for Siteworks 2022 is the concept of the weather report, borrowed to map both environmental and emotional spaces, and chronicle internal and external landscapes. This expansive program includes a new exhibition, outdoor installations, a laboratorium space for workshops and performances, as well as talks and events over weekends throughout the season. Siteworks 2022 posits the artist as a kind of weather balloon, capturing a collection of reports on our place and our time.

Commissioned by Bundanon; part of the weather station in Bundanon, NSW, Australia - find out more here.