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          On the 18th of February 2023
                                     at 12 noon and also at 3pm
EPA guided audiences along the ridge-line of Mount Corhanwarrabul.

Climate Distraction was part of LIVE ACTIONS a month long series of events for the Burrinja Climate Change Biennale - THE HEAT IS ON

For more info on the Biennale:
exhibitions.burrinja.org.au


Participants from the Yarra Ranges and beyond were invited to experience and participate in a sensory journey. In this layered encounter with Mount Corhanwarrabul the invitation was to connect with the atmospheres and climate as experienced in the moment. EPA guided participants in activities and tasks that sensitised the senses and provoked responses - embodied, cognitive and psychological. 
Our thoughts in creating this work were that: We (westerners) need a catastrophic shift in our thinking, our way of being in the world. Not catastrophic in a negative sense - we need silence, we need stillness, we need to listen. It is our constant doing that drives the problems we face, so does doing more really help?  EPA will slowly draw participants into an alternate reality of stillness, silence, stopping and listening. Before we can figure out what action needs to be taken, we need to stop.
These experiences of stillness were punctuated with performances by the EPA which playfully point to aspects of place. Participants engaged with the environment where the effects of the current climate emergency may have been sensed visually, auditorily, olfactorily, and tactilely.
This walking performance started at the carpark on Osprey track and moved along the Kyeema trail to Bourke’s Lookout. The whole experience concluded in the parkland underneath the transmission towers for refreshments, and a final discussion. 
Images: Bronwen Kamasz
On the day:
Participants experienced deep listening, slowing down, and sharing their experiences with others.
Images: Laki Sideris
Audience feedback:

"It was wonder like active meditation. A gift to be encouraged to be still slow down and really experience and absorb surroundings and nature in a way I don’t drop into on my own"

"I took off my shoes, and there's nothing like walking in bare feet to make one acutely aware of every groove on the earth, every pebble"

"My hearing expanded"

"Sense of connection and community. Sense of curiosity."


Rehearsal


Our creative development process happens only when we are on site. On this midsummer day it was about 12 degrees with a thick mist enveloping the mountain..


The text comes from a research walk we conducted as part of Dancing Place - Corhanwarrabul in 2020.
Video: Bronwen Kamasz (featuring voice of Dani-Ela Kayler)
Climate Distraction was part of LIVE ACTIONS a month long series of actions for the Burrinja Climate Change Biennale - THE HEAT IS ON
exhibitions.burrinja.org.au

supported by:
"We acknowledge that we live, work and create on the lands and waters of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. We recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people are the Traditional Custodians of the lands and their continuing connection to the land and waters surrounding us. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
 We acknowledge that generations of First Nations people have danced, performed and told story here for over sixty thousand years and these rich customs and traditions continue in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island culture today."