LA partnered with UNSW Galleries to present a performance of Untitled (Death Song) as part of the Quandamooka artist Megan Cope's major new exhibition investigating listening practices and extractive industries in Australia.

‘Untitled (Death Song)’ 2020 comprises sound sculptures constructed from discarded mining and industrial equipment accompanied by a soundtrack made in collaboration with musician and instrument builder Isha Ram Das. It takes its first note from the haunting cries of the yellow-eyed Bush Stone-curlew. An endangered species within New South Wales, the Bush Stone-curlew is known for its distinctive call, a ghost-like “weer-lo” sound. Heard in chorus and crescendo with other Bush Stone-curlews, the eerie call is often mistaken for a crying baby or wailing woman. ‘Untitled (Death Song)’ is a meditation on the sound of Country and Gurrell (Curlew), also known as a harbinger of death in Quandamooka culture. Megan Cope writes: “The threatened status of the bird not only registers significant ecological change and the impact of modern agricultural land management; it is a harbinger, a warning for the future.”

A quartet of musicians—Sonya Holowell, Jonathan Holowell, Melanie Herbert and Niki Johnson—draw the call of the curlew out of their instruments using a range of extended techniques developed for the work by musician Isha Ram Das and curator Joel Stern, drawing from the event score and documentation published in Disclaimer as part of Unsettling Scores.