Into the River – Te Awa Kairangi
Sound and video installation (3:51 min)
Presented at UNSW Galleries, Sydney NSW (2021)
Live performance

Frontyard Projects, Marrickville NSW (2022)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Into the River draws on practice-led research to render the river’s immanent and immediate presence as a formidable guardian and teacher. Sonic abstraction, vocalisation, layered moving image, and digital effects explore traces of the river’s presence and the colonial histories that impact its waters, land, and surroundings.

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The first sound I heard each morning, and the last at night, was the river down the back of our place, its rapids rushing through my earliest memories in the place where I grew up. Over time, the river's flow became inseparable from my sensory perception, saturating my being with melody and movement until I was always in the river, as if I were water.

— Jacqui O’Reilly
 

 

The Te Awa Kairangi, Hutt River, runs through the Hutt Valley in the Wellington Region of Aotearoa New Zealand. Beginning in the southern Tararua Range, it flows southwest before reaching Wellington Harbour. Translated from Te Reo Māori as ‘The Esteemed River’, it holds deep cultural and historical significance for mana whenua, who relied on it as a vital source of food, transport and connection.

This river is now under red-alert threat due to widespread toxic algae that blooms on a regular basis, causing pollution and disrupting its freshwater ecosystem. This ecological degradation underscores the urgency of listening practices that attune to both human memory and environmental relations.