I am a Canberra-based poet and visual artist, with an background in music. I’ve published a collection of poetry, The Myrrh-Bearers (Sydney: Puncher & Wattmann, 2015), and a book of images and poems made while living with the Warlpiri, The Lumen Seed (New York: Daylight Books, 2017).
Since 2011, I have spent part of each year living and working with tribal people in the Tanami desert. My work includes themes of displacement and identity loss, a reflection on my own lost Aboriginal ancestry, but primarily it is centred on the concept of connection with Country.
I have directed and worked on two major social justice research projects–The Julfa Project, which preserved photographic records of a destroyed Armenian cemetery and digitally reconstructed the site from new and existing images; and Kurdiji 1.0, an Aboriginal suicide prevention app, which strengthens resilience in young indigenous people by reconnecting them with community and culture.
Scroll down for information on my books, exhibitions and press reviews.
The Lumen Seed (NY: Daylight, 2017) contains photographs, drawings and poems about the indigenous Warlpiri people of Australia’s Northern Tanami Desert.
The Lumen Seed depicts a cultural dialogue taking place before a backdrop of offences against the Australian continent, as well as a history of systematic discrimination against indigenous peoples on the part of the country’s white population. The images, created in close consultation with Warlpiri people, document an attempt by elders to share sacred information with white people; the poems convey my interpretation of those ideas, alongside my slow development of personal relationships with community elders.
The Myrrh-Bearers (Sydney: Puncher & Wattmann, 2015) is a book of love poems, describing real events and real people as the poet has experienced them. The worlds evoked in these poems are suffused with faerie tales, myth and philosophy. The genesis of this collection lies in a diverse engagement with different poetries: the influence of the Polish poets Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz, along with that of the French poets Henri Michaux, René Char, René Daumal and Alfred Jarry; there is also the sure presence of Gwen Harwood and Judith Wright as well as, more esoterically, William Blake and G. I. Gurdjieff. The pataphysical influence of Jarry, in particular, leads to a poetry which attempts to describe a universe supplementary to the one which we inhabit. The presence of music as a subject stems from a close engagement with musical mentors, Larry Sitsky in Australia, Emmanuel Nunes in France and Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany.
Verity La Journal, cover image (Neil Jupurrula at Watfish Waterhole) for the Australia Day edition, 2016.
Burnt Umber, Paul Hetherington. UWA Press, 2016. Cover Artwork.
Rabbit 14, Deviations, March 2015. 12 images.
Different Windows, Paul Hetherington. UWA Press, 2013. Cover Artwork.
100 Canberra Houses, Tim Reeves and Dr Alan Roberts. Halstead Press, 2013. Three photographs.
BETA, developments in photography ezine, August 2012. 10 page spread.
Bluecanvas issue 14, December 2012. Six works.
Axon Journal, issue 2 (March 2012). Eight works from Märchen.
Photo Review Australia Magazine, 2011, “Self-diptych” also a Billboard image at the entry to the city of Ballarat for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB’11).
Poetic Terrorism: by a selection of female self-portrait artists, (ed.) Helene Deroubaix, 2009. Six works.
Olivier Messiaen: the Centenary Papers, Ed. J. Crispin. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010. Cover Artwork.
BIFB Collection 2015, July 2015.
BIFB Collection 2014, August 2014.
Magnet Gallery Melbourne, March 2014. Curated show The Well-Spring (6 works).
Märchen, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Photography 11A, January-February 2012 (13 works).
Photonet Gallery Melbourne, March 2013. Curated show Windows (9 works).
Manning Clark House Canberra, May-June 2012. Curated show Washi (4 works).
Photonet Gallery Melbourne, April-May 2012. Curated Show Fire (5 works).
Photonet Gallery Melbourne, March-April 2012. Curated show Washi (4 works).
Photonet Gallery Melbourne, February-March 2012. Curated show Branches of Olive (8 works).
The Cartographer’s Illusion, Core Program Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB’11), August 20-Sept 19, 2011 (26 works).
Simulacra, 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin, June 2011 (21 works).
Beelzebub’s Tales, Humboldt Universität, Berlin, Febr. 2011 (21 works).
Brunswick Street Gallery Melbourne, August 2011. Group show (single work).
New North Gallery, June-July 2011. Curated show (single work).
Brunswick Street Gallery Melbourne, April 2011. Group show (single work).
‘Sitsky in his 80th year’. Resonate Magazine, Australian Music Centre, September 2014.
‘The Poet and the Guru: Understanding René Daumal in the light of Gurdjieffian Philosophy’. Axon: Creative Explorations, issue 6 (September 2014).
Crispin, Marshall, Riddell & McAlary, Recovering a Lost Armenian Cemetery: A Pilot Project. Text, cover image and 55 images of 130.
‘A Reflection on Photography’, One Thousand Words about Photography, Issue one May 2013.
“The transcendence of musical time: Text and temporality in Busoni’s Doktor Faust and Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise” in Time and Space in Words and Music, New York: Peter Lang, 2011.
“Introducing Larry Sitsky’s New Ending for Ferruccio Busoni’s Doktor Faust”. Ereignis und Exegese–Musikinterpretation und Interpretation der Musik. Festschrift für Hermann Danuser, ed. Camilla Bork, Tobias Klein, Burkhard Meischein, Andreas Meyer and Tobias Plebuch, Schliengen (Germany): Edition Argus 2011.
“Messiaen’s Transcendent Angels and the Ten Duino Elegies of Rilke”, in Olivier Messiaen: the Centenary Papers, Ed. J. Crispin. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
“The Esoteric Legacy of Ferruccio Busoni”, in Music and Esotericism, ed. Laurence Wuidar, Amsterdam: Brill. 2009.
“The Nuctemeron of Sitsky” Current Issues in Music, (Vol II 2008) pp. 7 – 39. Canberra: Southern Voices, ISSN:1447–7939.
“On Freezing, Notes on a series by Boryana Katsarov”, BIFB’15 Catalogue, 2015.
“Preface” Dheerasekara, J. (catalogue) Manuwangku: under the nuclear cloud. Blurb, 2013.
“Preface” Hetherington, P & Anita Fitton. Spectral Resemblances. Blurb, 2013.
“Introduction” FIRST: Spun, an Anthology of Poems. University of Canberra Press, 2012.
“Preface” Sitsky, L. Doktor Faust, an ending.
“Preface” Catalogue of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, 2011.
