Short Abstract:

360 Virtual Reality experience exploring cyclical time in Hindu and Yolngu cosmologies through dance and animation. Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxVBi01rfJHEYhWWw6rLdPPikbV5Ak--m4Jdc0VT_6WC6Fyg/viewform

Long Abstract:

This Lab presents LAKA: CREATION, a 360 Virtual Reality experience that explores cyclical time in Hindu and Yolngu cosmologies, through dance and animation.

LAKA: CREATION immerses audiences in 'an other-lordly, womb-like space, where they hear a mother whisper to her unborn child a story of how the universe came into being. One story is Hindu; the other Yolngu. Both explore ideas of cyclical processes of destruction-creation-destruction.

Produced by CuriousWorks, LAKA: CREATION was developed with assistance from Create NSW and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as part of a multi-platform suite of collaborative works including single and multi-channel static and interactive video and sound installations, VR, an exhibition, a dramatic feature film exploring 'an ancient multiculturalism'. LAKA is a collaboration between Australian artists S. Shakthidharan and Rosealee Pearson, and their Sri Lankan and Yolngu families in Sydney and Arnhem Land respectively. The project elaborates echoes between Hindu and Yolngu cosmological temporalities, recognises 4,000 year old South Asian-Northern Australian DNA matches and speculates on pre-European settlement trading connections. Collectively the works immerse audiences in Hindu and Yolngu worldviews and histories, showcase rarely explored connections between the two cultural systems, and imagine possible manifestations of Australia's ancient, as well as contemporary, interculturalism.

Session will be introduced by Leah Barclay, contributing LAKA sound artist.

Limited number of participants. Please sign-up at registration.