Experiencing Interruptions?

Where Lakes Once Had Water

Where Lakes Once Had Water is a spectacular and sensorial video installation that transports us to remote northern Australia - from the ancient dry lakes of the Northern Territory, to Nitmiluk Katherine Gorge and coastal Girraween Lagoon.

The project is built up around the fieldwork of Earth scientists working with Indigenous Elders, rangers and participants from the Marlinja, Elliot, Jawoyn and Larrakia communities, in areas of Australia where long-term aridification is most evident.

Where Lakes Once Had Water takes us on an imaginative journey, exploring the labour of Earth scientists and Traditional Owners as they dig and delve into the past, reading the signs and signals in the landscape, over concepts of deep time.

'Our project tests the hypothesis that the Earth is experienced and understood through different but interconnected ontologies. These ways of being, seeing, sensing, listening and thinking can align with art, Indigenous thought, science, ancient and modern cultures, the non-human, and somewhere in between.'
- Sonia Leber & David Chesworth

Acknowledgements
Filmed on the lands of the Mudburra, Marlinja, Jingili, Elliot, Jawoyn and Larrakia Communities in Northern Territory, Australia. We acknowledge and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.

Where Lakes Once Had Water is the inaugural CABAH Art Series Commission of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) in association with Bundanon. University of Wollongong Art Collection, Australia.

  • Sonia Leber
    Director
  • David Chesworth
    Director
  • Sonia Leber
    Producer
  • David Chesworth
    Producer
  • Sonia Leber
    Filming, Editing and Sound design
  • David Chesworth
    Filming, Editing and Sound design
  • Peter Hatzipavlis
    Colour grading
  • Bec Plexus
    Voice
  • Filmed on the lands of the Mudburra, Marlinja, Jingili, Elliot, Jawoyn and Larrakia Communities in Northern Territory, Australia. We acknowledge and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future.
    Acknowledgements
  • The artists gratefully acknowledge the support of the Marlinja community, the Elliot community, the Larrakia Rangers, and the Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation Rangers. We are grateful for the support of many CABAH affiliates who appear in the work, with special thanks to Earth scientists Tim Cohen and Cassandra Rowe. We are grateful for the stewardship provided by CABAH working in association with Bundanon. Our gratitude to the School of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne.
    Acknowledgements
  • CABAH Art Series Commission in association with Bundanon. ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.
    Commissioned by
  • University of Wollongong Art Collection, Australia
    Collections
  • Project Type:
    Other
  • Runtime:
    28 minutes 14 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 31, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    4K UHD video
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Delayed due to covid-19
Distribution Information
  • contact the artists: sonia@leberandchesworth.com
Director Biography - Sonia Leber, David Chesworth

Sonia Leber and David Chesworth

Biography – July 2021

www.leberandchesworth.com

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Sonia Leber and David Chesworth are known for their distinctive installations using video, sound, architecture and public participation. Developed through expansive research in places undergoing social change, Leber and Chesworth’s works are speculative and archaeological, responding to architectural, social and technological settings. Their highly detailed, conceptual videoworks emerge from the real but exist significantly in the realm of the imaginary.

Leber and Chesworth’s artworks have been shown in the central exhibitions of the 56th Venice Biennale: All The World’s Futures (2015), the 19th Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire (2014) and a parallel exhibition of the 5th Moscow Biennale (2013).

Group exhibitions include 'Freedom of Sleep', Fondation Fiminco, Paris (2021); 'The Last Reader', annex M, Megaron, Athens (2018); 'The State We Are In: Collection of Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw', Galeria Labirynt, Lublin, Poland (2018); 'And Tomorrow And', Index–The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2018); 'The Score', Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (2017); 'Looking at me through you', Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney (2017); 'Call of the Avant-Garde: Constructivism and Australian Art', Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2017); 'I don't want to be there when it happens', 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (2017) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2017); 'The Real and Other Places', Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, at Photo Shanghai (2017); 'This is a Voice', Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, Sydney (2017); 'Borders, Barriers, Walls', Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2016); Substation Contemporary Art Prize, Melbourne (2016); 64th Blake Prize, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney (2016); 'The Documentary Take', Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2016); 'Melbourne Now', National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013-14); Gold Coast Art Prize (2014), Screengrab6 International Media Arts Award, Townsville (2014), 'Cooperation Territory', 16thLine Art Gallery and Makaronka Art Center, Rostov-on-Don, Russia (2013); 'Spaced: Art Out of Place', Fremantle Art Centre (2012); 'Animal/Human', UQ Art Museum, Brisbane (2012); 'Stealing the Senses', Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand (2011); Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture (2011); 'In camera and in public', Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2011); 'Madrid Abierto' (2007); '+Plus Factors', Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2006); and the visual art program of Melbourne International Arts Festival (2004).

Solo exhibitions include ‘What Listening Knows’, Messums Wiltshire, UK (2021); 'Architecture Makes Us: Cinematic Visions of Sonia Leber & David Chesworth', Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2018), UNSW Galleries, Sydney (2019) and Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane (2019); 'Zaum Tractor', Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne (2014); and Gridchinhall, Moscow (2013); 'The Way You Move Me', Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne (2012); 'Space-Shifter', Detached/MONA FOMA, Hobart (2012); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2011); and Conical, Melbourne (2009); and 'Almost Always Everywhere Apparent', Mildura Arts Centre (2008); and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2007).

Leber and Chesworth were awarded the Substation Contemporary Art Prize (2016); Gold Coast Art Prize (2014); and Screengrab International Media Arts Award (2014). They were finalists in the Blake Prize (2016); Incinerator Art Award for Social Change (2016 & 2018); and the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture (2011). They have been commissioned to create site-specific works for public spaces in Australia, New Zealand, Wales, and Slovenia.

Collections include Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; National Gallery of Victoria; Art Gallery of Western Australia; RMIT Gallery, Melbourne; Gold Coast City Gallery; Mildura Arts Centre; and Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

A full project history can be found at www.leberandchesworth.com

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