Dyerren Dyerren Dragon Tree

Amidst this violent time, the insane destruction of cultures and forests, with languages and species disappearing together, we are here making our wooden documents from salvaged trees and languages and sounds. In this year of the Wood Dragon, we know a forest is a library, a repository of wisdom. Evoking the Dragon or the Serpent – acknowledged in cultures across the Earth as the controller of the weather – we bring this Cypress tree, called Dyerren Dyerren in its mother tongue, into the Big Gallery Space. Reclaimed from the 2020 bushfires that encircled our bush studio on Gundungurra country, now it snakes across the room. The topmost branches climb the wall in a lash of the Dragon’s tail, a cyclonic swirl. A soundscape is woven through its serpentine form, of Indigenous languages (the voice of country), English and Latin, (the languages of colonisation and of science), and a sonorous chant from many musicians of diverse traditions. Visitors are invited to make their own small offerings from the Tree’s twigs. Thus, we pay our respects to the Dragon. 

Our sound and sculptural collaborations are imbued with history, science, story and myth. Since 2007 we have included a carbon audit and offset on all our projects. We thank the Bankstown Regional Gallery and its diverse communities for their support in the creation of this work. We respect the Indigenous Peoples on whose Lands we now exhibit, the Worimi and Awabakal.