Sounding Naarm/Melbourne: A Duet for Wind

mPavilion Parkville, University Square, The University of Melbourne, Parkville  
7-8 Oct, 11am-3pm: Free jam and yarns. 
9 Oct: 1-2.30pm: Formal performance, followed by discussion.  

There is a word in Paiwanese: kacalisan. Loosely translated as 'belonging to the slope', kacalisan can be used as both a noun and an adjective in relation to Paiwan people, who believe they are descendants of, and thus belong to, the mountain and the mountain slope. Kacalisan has also been used by other Indigenous Taiwanese to refer to themselves, in response to the longstanding divide between the Indigenous Taiwanese and Taiwan settlers. Foreigners, from the Chinese and Japanese to the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, have largely settled in more easily inhabitable flat lands, leaving Indigenous communities in Taiwan’s mountainous areas comparatively untouched.¹ Consequently, kacalisan refers both to Paiwan identity as well as those who identify with Indigenous Taiwanese cultural heritage.  

I reflect on this when considering the founding story for Paridrayan village: The legend of the lalingedan as two brothers Itja sa marekaka milimilingan. In this story, Paridrayan village is sited by the sound of rushing winds and the vision of two unevenly sized mountains in the Paridrayan landscape. Air moves through the valley and over the tops of these two brothers’ mountains (itja sa marekaka), creating winds. The harmonisation of these winds is heard as the brothers’ lament. The Paiwan lalingedan (double-piped flute), blown through two bamboo barrels, mimic this kacalisan ecology and sounds Paridrayan. The landscape speaks to the Paiwan people, and the Paiwan musicians learn its language through the flute. 

There are no equivalent instruments to the Paiwan flutes in Australia. In the flat and open landscape, the winds do not speak as loudly. Naarm-based Jen Valender has had some success with her Aeolian harps: when strategically placed, the soft lilt of the typically gentle winds are magnified. Wind rushing through University Square cuts cleanly through Glenn Murcutt’s mPavilion, where we will be placing Valender’s harps. While her strings venture to sing, Etan Creative Vision Studio will harmonise with their flutes and voices. They are here to sound Naarm in their search for kacalisan voices.    

We invite you to join them.  

Aeolian harps activated by the wind in regional Victoria, sound excerpt, 2023, courtesy of the artist. 

When I first began working with Aeolian (wind) harps, the boundaries between sculpture, performance and the earth began to dissolve, as if touched by some ancient magic. This transformation deepened after an encounter with Peter Roberts, a music-thanatologist from Geelong, who, like a priest of old, played his harp at the bedside of patients facing the end of their lives. I considered my Aeolian harps—instruments played by the wind itself moving through the strings, creating music without touch, without hands—in a new light. As tools for palliative care, they appeared more delicate and haunting, like breath exhaled or spirit leaving the body. The resonance of wind and soul kindled the idea to create harps not merely as musical instruments but as sculptures bearing the weight of memory, of the land itself. Fashioned from antique surveyors’ tripods, crowned with pyramid amplifiers, they stand like sentinels, capturing the wild, unaltered breath of the landscape—a cartographic echo, a memory, etched in sound. 

Prior to moving to Melbourne, Australia, I lived in Wellington, New Zealand for three years— the world’s windiest city. Positioned at the southernmost tip of the North Island, Wellington is caught between the wind channels of the northwest Tasman Sea and the southeast Pacific Ocean. These eastward-moving air currents are driven by a combination of factors: air displaced from the Equator toward the South Pole, the Earth's rotation, and the lack of landmasses at these latitudes to interrupt their flow.¹ My desire to work materially with the wind began from here.

In this environment, the wind is more than a meteorological phenomenon. I observed and experienced ‘wind rage’, a local term born from the frustration of battling gusts, which push and pull with such ferocity that even a short walk can leave one feeling as though they have been physically bullied by nature. This is not a city for hats nor hairdos. Wellington’s winds do not merely blow—they roar, moan and sigh, as do the people who live under their constant influence. These gales have the power to sculpt landscapes and carve sedimentary traces upon the earth. Such forces create an electric energy, a sense of romanticism, and a constant reminder of our vulnerability to powers beyond our control.  

While invisible to the eye, wind is tangible in sound. Its sonic presence embodies an unseen spirit greater than anything under human dominion. Throughout history, the wind has inspired myths, deities, and legends across cultures—Tāwhiri, the Māori god of weather; Bieggolmai, the Sami god of the summer wind; Feng Po, the Chinese goddess known as ‘Grandma Wind’; and Aeolus, the Greek god of winds.² My Aeolian harps capture this interplay between the invisible and embodied— strings vibrate in response to the wind, producing an improvised composition that is both natural and mystical.

When the invitation came to collaborate at MPavilion Parkville with members of Etan Creative Vision Art Studio from Taiwan, an opportunity emerged. One where our distinct engagements with the wind through performance, sculpture, and music could be attuned to our physical environment, invisible forces and each other.  

We will create a performance that is as much about the process as it is about the final artwork. Here, art and nature will intersect, identities and topographies merge, and the act of collaboration collapses into the creative output itself.³ Just as the wind shapes the Wellington landscape, I see this project harnessing the power of the wind to create a new form of energy—a synthesis of sound, sculpture and site.

Art events, Brian Eno suggests, are “short-lived communities,” bringing people together to share a collective experience.⁴ These fleeting moments allow us to connect, to listen, to uncover common ground through curiosity. We invite you to join this momentary community, to witness the live exchange of art ecologies carried together on a breeze. Come, listen, and be part of this collective experience at University Square.