shimmer in the landscape (shimmr) can be thought of as the transformation from dull to brilliance, the glistening of activity and the pulse of life, and of interconnections in ecology in the landscape.
Howard Morphy writes about the Australian Aboriginal Yolngu peoples’ concept of Bir’Yun – the transformation of a cultural painting from the rough, dull contour of the underpainting to the brilliance of the final work, which is filled with crosshatching to indicate “a shimmering quality of light which engenders an emotional response” [3]. Morphy suggests this idea operates cross-culturally [3]. Morphy and Deborah Bird Rose extend this concept to the shimmering pulses of life — seasons, new life, sun glistening on rippling water [3], streams of light in the landscape and the interconnections, emergence and withdrawal between interacting species, those termed as having symbiotic mutualism [4].
Shimmer (shimmr) requires a process of transformation – energy translating from one form to another, from dullness to brilliance.
“Nothing is connected to everything, everything is connected to something” notes Donna Haraway [1] via Thom van Dooren [5].
The aim and wish is not to culturally appropriate the Indigenous meanings of Bir’Yun / brilliance, but focus more on the ideas of shimmer by writers mentioned below, as shimmr, our interpretations of shimmer in the landscape.
shimmr is a group exhibition considering shimmer in the landscape, with Elizabeth Rankin, Katie McErlean and Kath O’Donnell at invisible art space in June 2027.
References
[1] Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Experimental Futures series. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Kindle eBook edition.
[2] Margulis, Lynn. 1998. Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. New York: Basic Books. Kindle eBook edition.
[3] Morphy, Howard. 1989. “From Dull to Brilliant: The Aesthetics of Spiritual Power Among the Yolngu.” Man. 24(1): 21-40. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2802545.
[4] Rose, Deborah Rose. 2022. Shimmer – Flying Fox Exuberance in Worlds of Peril. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. Kindle eBook edition.
[5] Van Dooren, Thom. 2014. Flight Ways – Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction. New York: Columbia University Press. Kindle eBook edition.
