Call and Response, 2022

Print on polyester, 62x1200cm.

Call and Response is a dispatch from the environment in crisis, in particular from the threatened regent honeyeater, Anthochaera Phrygia. Unchecked land clearing of its box-ironbark habitat for grazing and firewood has been catastrophic for this woodland bird which travels great distances in flocks following the flowering of eucalypts. 

Now there are not enough male birds to teach the young males the mating call necessary to attract a mate and to continue the species – the culture of the regent is being lost. Many now imitate the call of other birds, and its own learnt song has become simplified and abbreviated. Once widespread in large numbers from South Australia to Central Queensland, in a space of fifty years the numbers of regent honeyeater have plummeted to an estimated 300 individuals, bringing it to the verge of extinction.

The frieze is a translation of spectrographs of songs of the regent honeyeater recorded by ANU scientists Dan Appleby and Ross Crates.

DISPATCHES group show, Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby NSW August 2022