Echoes: On the river #mycooksriver scavenger hunt

7 ECHOES

Location: Sydney

Selina Springett
Selina Springett
I am a Sydney-based multimedia artist and researcher with a deep interest in sound, the environment and the echoes of pst present and future that saturate place. My broader art practice involves community and public art projects with a focus on environmental and social themes often incorporating experimental, polyphonic audio. I am currently working on a deep mapping project on an urban river system in Sydney, Australia.

The #mycooksriver hunt begins the first phase of a generative open-ended project and the making of physical and virtual mementos and memories. Use the echoes as location guides for hunting your treasures. The Echoes tell sonic stories, sometimes through voices, sometimes through sounds asking you to open your ears and reflect on their messages. // This project is proudly brought to you by the Cooks River Changemakers. Many thanks to the Cooks River Alliance for facilitation and support.

The swamp

At the intersection of Juhan Munna, Bulanaming and Gumbramorra Swamp. In 1906 the State Government declared the land between the junction of the Cooks River and Wolli Creek waterways to be "unhealthy" under the Public Health Act of 1902. Building was forbidden on this low-lying land which "gave off gases and vapours, which were "prejudicial and dangerous to health"". This land remained in the possession of the Department of Public Works for the storage of materials used in the maintenance of the river banks and for the disposal of dredgings. It was donated to Canterbury Council in 1978 and Council transformed the area into parkland. December 1982. Alderman Kevin Moss in the cream suit (Mayor, Canterbury Municipal Council) and Gough Whitlam unveiling the Gough Whitlam Park plaque .

1 sound

Tiptoe aroud the river's wrist

Is the river the never the small river twice or does it flow back and forth through time connecting to lace and to each other?

1 sound

I'm here now

The Cooks river was once twice as long as it is now, some 20 000 years ago. Home to the Wangal, Cadigal and Gweagal clans it was a source of life and food for millennia in a reciprocal cycle.

1 sound

Quite a toxic river

Our gaze of the river has an important role in our relationship to it and to how we set about looking after it.

1 sound

Critical Mass

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Cooks River was popular with swimmers; Sydney Long's painting, By Tranquil Waters, 1894, records the scene at its junction with Wolli Creek. Newspaper correspondents frequently complained about the impossibility of taking ladies down to the river because 'from Starkey's Corner (Hurlstone Park) to Tempe there could be counted 30 to 40 men and boys openly bathing in a perfectly nude state, some standing on projecting rocks without the slightest show of concealment'. The archival photo from above was the Steel Park River Patrol Life Savers Club. By this time there were a more balanced collection of bathers including Annette Kellerman, who used to swim at undercliffe. Standing here across the rover is the site of the former river life savers club.

1 sound

A river is...

When is a river not a river? How do we define what constitutes a river. Does all of the catchment belong to the river?

1 sound

Cars in the river

For good or bad the river draws everything in. It is up to us to strive to be a force for good. We belong to the river.

1 sound

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