Perth Voice Interactive

VIEWING an exhibition sans art is like finding a drop of water in a river.

But artist/musician Mei Saraswati has more than a drop of talent and conjures image of water with evocative music as part of the mixed medium exhibition Radical Ecologies opening soon at PICA.

Her contribution has no images, sculptures or paintings: “I’m doing a sound piece of different water from different sources,“ Saraswati says.

Whether kayaking or discovering a puddle, the North Perth local is always ready with her waterproof recorder. Mixing the sounds with electronic music and keyboard, the results are unusual and a puddle can sound like melodic rumbling.

“It’s fun to try to find a musical element in waterm, she says.

Featuring a mix of artists at the sharp edge of contemporary practice, Radical Ecologies is a sensory invitation to question our complex relationship with the natural world, our own bodies, and each other.

Termites rewrote the romance novel in Perdita Philips’ instillation of more than 850 book pages buried for 12 months in a desert sand dune.

The installation Pony Express and Ecosexual Bathhouse by Northbridge locals Loren Kronemyer and Ian Sinclair will set tongues wagging with a purpose-built sauna people can sit in while listening to stories of self-identified ecosexuals whispered through the walls.

North Perth local Matt Aitken and Booragoon’s Noel Nannup are chalk and cheese; a young artist and a respected Aboriginal elder presenting a collection of audio and video recordings captured as they met at significant sites around Perth.

Fremantle artist Rose Megirian raises questions of authenticity with a series of silver vessels tarnished and altered in ways that question their origins – and their monetary value.

Mike Bianco’s “bee bed” invites the audience to lay down with bees to explores the complex relationship between humans and honeybees at a time when bee colonies worldwide are in decline, threatening food production.

Radical Ecologies is on a PICA, James Street, Northbridge July 30 to September 4.