Sonya Mellor, 'Deep Listening' 2023

Content from UpNext.com.au. Please don't scrape website.

Through sculpture, installation, movement, sound and performance art, Sonya Mellor will be activating The Mill's Exhibition Space, inviting audiences to experience a vibrant, dynamic, living exhibition. Sonya builds on concepts that she explored while participating in The Mill's City Mobilities Public Art Masterclasses in 2020 and 2021, bringing ideas of public space into the gallery space.

The exhibition's title makes reference to writing by Quanamooka artist Megan Cope, who encourages the viewer to consider the relationship between sound, vibrations, our bodies and the land, inviting '...'deep listening', in order to align mind and body with the earth'. Sonya's approach to the act of deep listening is concerned with attention and respect, acknowledging her role as a non-Indigenous person on stolen land. 'Through my passions of nature and community, I would like to engage the community/public, through arts activation, into deep listening' she states. The works are created using a diverse range of materials, and artistic practices; Using reclaimed, repurposed, discarded and found on the ground objects, the discarded parts of natural objects, poetry, sound and movement. The exhibition will also include an ephemeral floor installation consisting of natural objects found on daily walks explorations during the exhibition time, an acknowledgement of 'deep listening' to the land where we live, work and play.