In 2022, Tracey and Meeting of the Waters: Locative Media Oceania (LMO) participant Simone Johnson started to have conversations about their mutual love of the Dugongs and Manatees. This resulted in a series of love letters being written by them to these magical and elusive creatures.
Simone and Tracey then presented their love letters to the Dugongs and Manatees to the LMO group on a zoom call in December 2022. The theme of these calls was Water Play and was an opportunity for monthly catch up and information share between past LMO participants. Here is the recording of the presentation.
From this presentation, there was more interest in the Dugong Love Letters by organisers of the 2023 Dugong Symposium, run by the Bribie Island Environment Protection Association (BIEPA) at the Bribie Island Seaside Museum. More letters were shared from Simone and well as one from Abu Dhabi by Kim Robertson.
At the recent Weaving Water @ Yarun residency there was a lot of interest in the dugongs, with one of the events being a tour with the Ferryman of Pumicestone Passage where about four dugongs were seen. This created great excitement for the group of residency participants and more love letters were written to the dugongs.
Bronwin Patrickson, a sound artist who creates interactive walks was inspired to not only create a love letter in the form of a story but also a sound walk with the love letters from Simone, Kim and Tracey as well as new ones by Tamsin Kerr and Bronwin. The sound walk also has contributions from many of the other residents ❤
Bronwin’s gorgeous story focused on the dugong losing its tail, which spoke to the changing form of Yarun, which is known as the dugong because of its shape. The northern end of the island (the tail) experienced a breakthrough from the ocean in 2022 and since then the tip of the island has been shifting towards the mainland.
Here is a link to the sound walk Love Letters to Dugongs: A Walking Postcard and a screenshot of this lovely work which is designed to be experienced in-situ ❤
We hope these offerings to the dugongs grow over time with more humans offering their love letters.
Treecreate 