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Carriageworks

Until the 26th of September 2020 you can conduct your own reading at the biennale installation at Carriageworks. Onsite there is an installation of unbound booklets from the production of NIRIN NGAAY – you can take a selection and do your own reading. Go visit!

Reading NIRIN: Andrew Rewald

In this video, Andrew Rewald reads 'On the Movement of Plants' from NIRIN NGAAY. Watch here

Reading NIRIN: Karla Dickens

Karla Dickens reads her contribution, 'Ready, Willing and Able'. Watch here

Reading NIRIN: Gladys Milroy

In this video, Gladys Milroy reads her story, 'The Black Feather'. Watch here

Reading NIRIN: Jessyca Hutchens

In this video, Jessyca Hutchens introduces us to the book. Watch here

Printed matter & NIRIN publications

Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter speak with Brook Andrew about their own artistic processes in printed matter and how they came to collaborate and produce two publications for NIRIN. The two publications, the exhibition catalogue NIRIN (edge) and the 'reader' NIRIN NGAAY (see the edge) were created in collaboration with (editors) Jessyca Hutchens (Assistant Curator to the Artistic Director) and Brook Andrew. Watch here

An artist’s book by Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter.
Edited by Jessyca Hutchens, Brook Andrew, Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter.
Commissioned for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney.

The Biennale of Sydney team and authors of this publication acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation; the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation; the Bidiagal, Dharawal and Gamaygal people, on whose ancestral lands and waters NIRIN gathers.

NIRIN is a safe place for people to honour mutual respect and the diversity of expression and thoughts that empower us all.

NIRIN NGAAY is a compilation, a collection, a volume, an Artist Book, a Reader, an artwork, a sprawling, excessive heterogenous space of connections. Published as part of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020), titled NIRIN, A Wiradjuri word meaning ‘edge’, this book is a space where ideas, themes, research, and experiments arising out of NIRIN find places on pages. Traversing many disciplines and forms, encompassing new and previously published works, complete works as well as excerpts and fragments and responses, each piece may ask for new modes of reading and seeing. Instead of disorienting, we see many lines darting and weaving across these works, beautiful moments of syncing and overlap, affective and abstract resonances, moments of density, as well as pauses to breathe deeply. Read and see and touch at random or with resolve – we hope that you will appreciate the way these works unfold and twist together, creating movements of meaning between them. ‘NGAAY’ is a Wiradjuri word meaning ‘see.’ To really see ‘edges’, might also be to sense and feel and trace them, they come into view with clarity, hover in the periphery, or drift away like memories.

Buy the book

Copies of NIRIN NGAAY can be purchased at the
Biennale of Sydney Shop

Book credits

First published in 2020 by the Biennale of Sydney Ltd.

Published with generous support from Aesop and the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

This publication is copyright and all rights are reserved. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced or
communicated to the public by any process without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

© Biennale of Sydney Ltd
All texts and artworks © the author or artist.

Published for the exhibition the 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, 14 March – 8
June 2020.

ISBN: 978-0-9578023-9-1

Biennale of Sydney
Chief Executive Officer: Barbara Moore
Artistic Director: Brook Andrew
Editors: Jessyca Hutchens, Brook Andrew, Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter
Publications team: Sebastian Henry-Jones, Liz Malcolm and Jodie Polutele

Designed, typeset and printed by Stuart Geddes and Trent Walter on a Heidelberg GTO 52. Some sections printed by Printgraphics and Newsprinters.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Biennale of Sydney.

Biennale of Sydney Ltd
Level 4
10 Hickson Road
The Rocks NSW 2000
Australia

Film credits

Director & Producer
Amy Browne

Camera
Amy Browne
Jason Heller

Editor
Jaime Snyder

Sound by
Jaime Snyder
Ben Coe

Nirin Ngaay

Somos plantas sem eira
Bebendo um pouco de orvalho acidental
Sobrevivendo com raízes na areia
Tentando subir nossos galhos ao céu
Aprofundar-se sob o cascalho

Não somos carvalhos
Somos frágeis
Somos estrangeiros
Somos bananeiras

Estrangeiros
Alienígenas
Adaptando-se ao que aparece
Rezando mesmo sem acreditar
Corações frágeis
Machucados

Brigamos para ser amados
Discutimos sobre não-existir
Rezando para existir
Respirando com dificuldades
Bombeando para nossos pulmões
Ar-relva
Relvar
Ar-relva
Revolto
Me falta ar
Me falta tua pele
Teu cheiro
Me falta falar

Mas quando tenho
Não aceito
Não mereço
Não quero
Beligerante
Distante

A dor no peito é meu lugar comum
A dor no peito me dá sentido
Te afasto
Aumento a dor no peito
Esqueço de tomar meu remédio
Durmo mal
Acordo mal
Esqueço de tomar meu remédio
A dor no peito aumenta
Falta você
Ar
Ar-relva
Relvar
Voltar
‘Swēthärt


Asthmatic-banana tree

We are plants without a threshing floor
Drinking a little bit of accidental dew
Surviving with roots in the sand
Trying to raise our branches towards the sky
To deepen under the gravel

We are not oak
We are fragile
We are foreigners
We are banana trees

Foreigners
Aliens
Adapting to what shows up
Praying even without believing
Fragile hearts
Bruised

We fight to be loved
We discuss non-existence
Praying for existence
Breathing hard
Pumping into our lungs
Sward-air
To sward
Sward-air
I swerve
I lack air
I lack your skin
Your smell
I lack speaking

But when I have it
I do not accept it
I do not deserve it
I do not want it
Belligerent
Distant

Chest pain is my common place
Chest pain gives me meaning
I push you away
I cause the chest pain to grow
I forget to take my medicine
I sleep badly
I wake up badly
I forget to take my medicine
The chest pain grows
You are missing
Air
Sward-air
To sward
To return
‘Swēthärt

Translated into English by Ana Bezerra