A popular sound art installation that has been a hit throughout the Yarra Ranges Yarra Ranges and can now be heard on at Yarra Valley ECOSS.
Artist Peter Mcilwain’s Bird Child Spirit project was first installed near the Selby Community House in 2022, then on the Warburton Rail trail in Mt Evelyn and Yering Station in spring prior to winding up in Wesburn.
Bird Child Spirit was supported by Yarra Ranges Council’s Art Attack grants and is an installation of a lot of small speakers at a site which interacts with the bushland with the sound being dispersed and distributed by the vegetation, the trees and the landscape.
Mr Mcilwain worked with local young children and their families to record the children making bird sounds and not just the sound of an owl or a kookaburra, sometimes even being instructed to imagine they’re a unique bird speaking to one another in their own bird language.
The installation can be heard every 20 mins from 2pm to 7pm from Tuesday to Saturday until 23 December. Mr Mcilwain will be at the regular ECOSS markets on Friday evenings and is happy to record new ‘birds’ for the installation. Parents will need to sign a recording release form for their child to be recorded and feature in the installation.
The exhibition now features about 600 different recordings and won the Yering Station Sculpture Award for 2023.
