Nature was quiet on World Environment Day: The Stories Behind the Silence

published June 5, 2024 by Kim V. Goldsmith

Outdoor events involving technical equipment are always a gamble. Winter announced her presence early this year in the Central West of New South Wales, cloaked in cold southerly winds, showers, and overcast days with plunging temperatures in the week leading up to World Environment Day 2024 on 5 June. Of course, I had planned an outdoor listening event for the occasion.

I was part of a program of place-based interventions across the country by members of the ecoartspace Australian Dialogues, each of us marking World Environment Day by creating hopeful actions to address the issues impacting the environments where we live and work. This is the first of a series of events we're planning over the next 12 to 18 months.

An urban setting was chosen for my Lunchtime Listening Lab event—not an environment I usually work in, or my personal preference. However, I believe an intervention requires one to go where the people are rather than expecting them to come to me. My event location was on the lawns at the front of the Western Plains Cultural Centre in the regional city of Dubbo—facing a busy street and close to the path leading into the gallery museum complex’s popular café.

To read the full post go to the artists' blog here