ngiyama mirrim baany yulendj: Reawakening Deep Water Knowledge Exhibition
Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre
Melbourne Museum
Naarm/Melbourne, Australia
Sept 2026 – June 2027
About the exhibition:
Baany (water) is a living presence, carrying memory and sustaining life. Through sound, film, visuals and artefacts, ngiyama mirrim baany yulendj explores how First Peoples' knowledge guides a more sustainable and culturally grounded approach to water in cities.
The artworks and research in the exhibition, developed in collaboration between Museums Victoria and Monash University, focus on the waterways, wetlands and coastal landscapes of the Cities of Port Phillip and Bayside within Boonwurrung Country.
Boonwurrung Environmental Soundscapes features spatial sound recordings from sound artist Jordan Lacey, with additional contributions and feedback courtesy of freshwater ecologist Rhys Coleman. Crafted as an interactive piece, where visitors' presence shapes the blend of recorded audio playing through the exhibit, Boonwurrung Environmental Soundscapes is an 8-channel, 20-stem soundscape that presents a diverse mix of the flora and fauna of Boonwurrung Country.
The interaction concept combines the metaphor of hydrophones, illuminated downlights and one's presence as carriers, attraction points and listening posts for the sounds. Sited on an empty floor space, four circular cones of light suggests plausible zones of interaction. The presence of one's body or hand underneath each light smoothly modulates the spatial mix of sounds coming from the overhead speakers. The placement of these interactive zones encourages collaboration amongst visitors, while still allowing individuals to experience the spatial sound overlays alone. The overall experience is that of distinct sounds flowing to the area where visitors are.
The installation features ruggedised time-of-flight (ToF) sensors fitted to custom electronics with redundancy features to withstand the daily rigours required of a state museum exhibit. These were manufactured on bespoke PCB designs that fit into the enclosure design, which were 3D printed and post-processed to achieve a matte, minimal finish. No complex hardware and software patches–common with this genre of interactive installation–meant that hardened hardware variants can be specified that withstands the daily startup/shutdown grind.
During software development, custom digital twin software was also designed and developed to provide 1:1 test points for the spatial sound mapping to be explored, via a local MIDI interface. In this mode, the digital twin served as a MIDI instrument to drive the Reaper DAW software for off-site testing. On-site, the digital twin also served as a visitor simulator and sensor readout dashboard, used to test drive the setup without the need for real human actors. The visualisations also provided a sonic 'heatmap' of the installation to feed back to the mixing algorithm, providing feedback for mitigating loud spots to further tune the spatial sound mix.
