Artist Talk: Mikala Dwyer 

On the final day of Mikala Dwyer's Gertrude Glasshouse exhibition Ode to the ʻōʻō, Gertrude presented an in conversation between the artist and Artistic Director Mark Feary, followed by a closing reception. Working in collaboration with composer James Hayes, the project centres around an acoustic soundscape in homage to the ʻōʻō bird, once native to the islands of Hawai'i and broadly acknowledged to have become extinct in the 1980s.

In equal measures beautiful and forlorn, the four-channel composition imagines a scenario prior to the ʻōʻō's demise in which a diverse species of birds cast their mating call to one another. Enshrined within a multi-focal installation sadly bereft of living matter, Ode to the ʻōʻō speaks to the preservation and zoological incubation of endangered species, as well as conjuring the spirit of the bird as metaphor for environmental change and demise. For the discussion, the artist will discuss the present project, her uniquely provisional and responsive approach to installation practice, and the impermanence of artefact.