Tidal Volume
Tidal Volume is a sound-based digital exchange featuring Indigenous artists from Melbourne, Australia and Vancouver, Canada. Image: Illustration by Jarra Steel, 2021.
About the Program
Tidal Volume is ‘call and response’ residency for Indigenous culture-bearers to experiment with sound, song, language, spoken word and text to connect across distance.
Produced in the context of the pandemic, Tidal Volume asks us to consider what presence means when we can’t be in physical spaces together. How might we communicate — and listen — differently?
Presented in partnership with Vancouver-based organisations grunt gallery and The Blue Cabin, artists will work in collaboration to produce new works that experiments with sound, song, language, spoken word and text – connecting through conversation across distance.
Residency dates: 27 September – 24 October, 2021
Image: Resistance Transmission, 10-day listening event by the Maribyrnong River. Image Jacinta Keefe.
Funded by the generous support of the Australia Council for the Arts, the Canada Council for the Arts and supported by Victoria University.
Meet the Tidal Volume Participants
Jarra Karalinar Steel
(Boonwurrung & Wemba Wemba)
Jarra Karalinar Steel is a multidisciplinary artist known for her Melbourne Art Tram, powerful poster art, large-scale public installations, augmented reality, digital art, emu egg engravings, and commemorative signage. Steel explores her identity, memories, pop culture, folklore from her cultural history, and lived experiences growing up in Melbourne and living on country in culture with knowledge passed down through her family. Steel is of Boon Wurrung, Wemba Wemba, Trawlwoolway, English and Scottish descent, and is based in Melbourne’s south on Boonwurrung country. She is a passionate advocate and consultant for self-representation of Victorian First Peoples art and culture and making sure it is kept alive and thriving
Her focus in public and community art looks at ways to insert contemporary cultural visual language into the urban and digital landscape by reclaiming space and belonging through digital storytelling.
Maya Hodge
(Lardil & Yangkaal)
Maya Hodge is a proud Lardil & Yangkaal woman raised in Mildura, Victoria. Based on the lands of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne), Maya is an emerging artist, published poet, curator and violinist whose work explores the power of healing in the arts, through uplighting First Nations creativity and Aboriginal women’s autonomy.
Maya is a president artist in this mob collective’s art studio, based at Collingwood Yards, and a founding member of Ensemble Duatala, an all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander classical ensemble. Maya has been involved in various projects and exhibitions including dis rupt, YIRRAMBOI Festival (2019); Constant Ecology, Westspace, KINGS Artist-Run (2020); Black Wattle with this mob, ArtsHouse Refuge Program (2021). Maya is currently the Assistant Curator – Exhibitions & Programs at Blak Dot Gallery.
Salia Joseph
(Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Snuneymuxw)
Salia Joseph, St’ax̱í7alut (she/her) is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Snuneymuxw, British and Jewish. She is a graduate of the First Nations and Indigenous studies program at UBC and cares deeply about decolonial, and intersectional approaches to learning and caring for one another. Salia is the executive director of Kwi Awt Stelmexw, a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh non profit focused on language revitalization. She is also part owner of a business called Host Consulting inc. Which is a Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh consultancy focused on public art and decolonial dialogues.
Orene Askew
(Sḵwx̱wú7mesh)
Orene Askew, aka DJ O Show, brings energy and expertise to every event she hosts and DJ’s. She brings professionalism and passion and remains true to her love for hip hop and R&B, incorporating beats to ensure you never want to leave the dance floor! With an outgoing personality and friendly demeanor, O Show is one of the easiest DJs to work with.
From Vancouver to Toronto, Las Vegas to Texas, DJ O Show keeps the dance floor packed, working with clients to put together unique packages and customized playlists for weddings, birthdays, holiday parties, corporate events, restaurant and club openings, charity fundraisers, youth conferences and pride events in her city.