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Debbie Symons: Sing at Bayside Gallery

Sing is an immersive installation by Melbourne artist Debbie Symons. Incorporating 100 handwoven pendant nests containing individual speakers emitting bird calls, Sing evokes the delicate and intricate connections found in remaining ‘wild’ rainforest environments. 

A group of suspended pendant shaped bird nests

Debbie Symons, Sing 2020 (detail), palm oil fronds and wire, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.

Sing is an immersive installation by Melbourne artist Debbie Symons. Incorporating 100 handwoven pendant nests containing individual speakers emitting bird calls, Sing evokes the delicate and intricate connections found in remaining ‘wild’ rainforest environments. 

Audio recording

Art and Science: Communication and Collaboration panel discussion

Symons is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses a range of mediums to communicate central themes in her work, including the complex relationship between humans, animals and the natural environment. This exhibition follows on from an influential art residency which Symons undertook in 2018 in one of the last remaining ‘wild’ spaces in the Amazon, Brazil.  

The nests in Sing resemble the Yellow-rumped cacique nests found suspended precariously over flooded forests throughout the Amazon while the hidden speakers emit bird calls that were recorded during Symons’ time there. As visitors walk through this immersive space, their senses will be transported to rainforest environments, enhancing their awareness of the intimate connections within the natural world.

This project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

Artist bio

Debbie Symons with her work Sing 2020.

Dr Debbie Symons is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses drawing, video and installation to communicate central themes in her work: humanity’s relationship with the natural environment, the global political economy and the effects of consumer culture.

She completed her PhD titled ‘Anthropocentrism, Endangered Species and the Environmental Dilemma’ at Monash University in 2014 and is an Associate in the School of Art within the College of Design and Social Context, a lecturer at RMIT, School of Art (Art Enterprise) and at Monash Art Design and Architecture (Masters of Design, Collaborative Design).

Since 2008, Symons has exhibited in over 50 group and solo exhibitions, including internationally at The International Urban Screen Association, The Streaming Museum, New York; and Galerie Prodromus, Paris; and locally at Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria; Craft Victoria, Linden New Art, and RMIT Gallery, Melbourne.

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