SOIL+AiR Creative Futures Landscapes, 2024-
SOIL+AiR brings together creatives, farmers, land stewards, other knowledge holders, and community changemakers to gently reconsider the way we think, feel and act within the world we inhabit through connection, enquiry, sharing, kindness, storytelling, and creativity-led action. It is a year-long, self-directed rural research residency project on a farm in the Narromine Shire and across Central West NSW, of listening, observing, learning, storytelling and public engagement through walking, talking and sharing. Co-creator in the project is farmer/agro-ecologist, Bruce Maynard.
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arboreus.earth, 2025-
Celebrating the sounds of trees in a virtual, global forest. This project website indexes the sonic portrait of trees from across the world with thanks to contributions from field recordists and acoustic ecologists interested in the life of trees. READ MORE
#SoundOfSoils, 2023-2024
The #SoundOfSoils story is set near Dubbo on Wiradyuri Country in New South Wales, Australia. The story of these soils was revealed over two months of observations and recordings in the summer of 2023/24. Using the burial of microbial-enhancing treated and untreated cotton fabric samples, Australian sound artist Kim V. Goldsmith spent two months listening to and recording the sounds of tenosol and rudosol soils on the unfarmed lands of her peri-urban property outside the city of Dubbo. This was part of an international Soil Dialogue project with ecoartspace. Kim co-authored a paper for the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) congress in Italy with US artist and academic, Anne Yoncha.
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Regional Futures: Vaticinor, 2022-
Vaticinor (The Augur) is Kim V. Goldsmith’s contribution to the NSW Regional Futures project, as an artist commissioned by Dubbo Regional Council. It seeks to (re)imagine what a post-carbon regional landscape might sound like from the perspective of more-than-human species, and how the hopes and fears of regional communities might be shaping a future where human needs continue to dominate. Regional Futures is a state-wide program of creative development and conversations that places artists at the centre of a dialogue exploring a future vision for the place where they live and create. 27 artists from across regional NSW have been commissioned to create work that responds to the prompt ‘What does the future look like for your region?’. Seven female artists from Regional NSW came together in 2024 to exhibit works from the original project at an exhibition at the Basil Sellers Exhibition Centre at Moruya, 26 October – 23 November 2024.
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Sonic Territories: Wambuul, 2022
Sonic Territories: Wambuul is a multi-staged creative project consisting of storytelling, community events and the creation of art, centred on the Wambuul/ Macquarie River—taking in Wellington, Dubbo and Narromine. This project involves four artists from the Dubbo Regional Council area.
This project invites collaboration and participation by other regionally-based artists and the community — as documenters, observers, contributors and storytellers. Each participant then takes a thread of the resulting conversation back into their community, in turn further developing the narrative and increasing awareness of the issues impacting the future of the river.
The first work from Stage 1 of this project is a soundtrack, a small collection of rivers stories released on World Rivers Day 2022, and a public sound walk.
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Inhalare/ breathe upon, 2021 – 2022
Inhalare / breathe upon transforms familiar landscapes into unfamiliar territories, allowing those who encounter Inhalare works to be transported without the need to travel. In stages, 12 regionally-based artists of NSW have explored natural environments close to home, developing soundscapes, writings and visual works that capture deep connections and hidden layers, and allow our imaginations to explore those environments that sustain us during times of restricted movement. The finished sound, text and visual artworks have been curated by Coonabarabran-based gallery director, artist and curator, Allison Reynolds at SPACE — the only disabled-run gallery in regional NSW. The Inhalare exhibition was at SPACE Gallery, Coonabarabran, 15 May – 16 June 2022.
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Pulse of the Wetland + MOSSES AND MARSHES, 2019 – 2022
Pulse of the Wetland investigates the recovery of the Macquarie Marshes from prolonged drought and fire, presenting the findings not only to the communities who are invested and part of its ecology but an international audience. It builds on the work done over the past decade in previous projects, using a process of enquiry through research, community consultation, storytelling and observation. This project is part of the Mosses and Marshes project, and sound and video recordings from Pulse of the Wetland have also been used into videos produced for the Window on the Wetlands Centre at Warren NSW.
Mosses + Marshes is an international project spanning two countries – the UK and Australia, both with Ramsar listed wetlands of international importance. It brings together artists, land managers and scientists to reimagine the future of these landscapes and the place they have in our communities.
Artists Andrew Howe (Shropshire, UK) and Kim V. Goldsmith (NSW, Australia) came together in 2018 as part of the international art programme, (Arts) Territory Exchange (aTE), having both worked for decades outside their practices in the natural resources and environment sector. Between October 2021 – June 2022, they have presented a body of 2D, 3D and digital media works in four exhibitions in the UK and Australia, published a book, and run an extensive program of public events. In mid-2021, the artists also contributed works from MOSSES AND MARSHES to an aTE travelling exhibition.
Project updates are available on the blog and project-related events can be seen on the Events page. READ MORE
Sonic Territories, 2020 –
Sonic Territories projects are centred on sound — sampling sound, imagining sound, creating narratives around sound that reimagine spaces and places.
Two river-based Sonic Territories projects are currently in different stages of development — Sonic Territories: Galari began during an artist residency at the CORRIDOR project near Cowra in 2020. A video was produced from this time, which was selected as a finalist in the 60th Fisher’s Ghost Art Award at Campbelltown Arts Centre in 2022; Stage 1 of Sonic Territories: Wambuul (see above) got underway in late 2022, with a soundscape composition, community stories and a sound walk. READ MORE
The Power of Sound, 2021 –
The Power of Sound is a 3-part course made up of a series of online and face-to-face workshops extending the idea of deep, active listening to the environment with the use of technology, and gaining a greater understanding of the use field recordings to create sound art, music, and soundtracks for videos. It was piloted with the Mudgee Aboriginal Land Council in 2021, with support from the Country Arts Support Program (CASP) through Orana Arts. The course was delivered with the assistance of digital media artist and sound engineer, Stephan de Wit van der Merwe. A compilation track from the pilot field trip was released on World Listening Day 2021. READ MORE
The following projects were not ecoPULSE.art initiated projects but they did form the foundation of what was to become ecoPULSE, based on principles of empowering regional artists to investigate issues impacting the communities they are part of, collaborations, and the presentation of new perspectives.
Eye of the Corvus: Messenger of Truth, 2018 – 2020
Eye of the Corvus: Messenger of Truth presents the landscape of rural NSW and remote Iceland from the perspective of corvids (ravens and crows), informed by scientific understandings, observations, field recordings, and folkloric Icelandic and Wiradjuri stories of the birds. As a project that included a two-month residency in Iceland, and resulting exhibition, it questions what might be revealed about the current state and future of our world. See the Eye of the Corvus website
Volucres, 2016
Volucres was installed at the national regional arts festival and conference, Artlands 2016, inside a church hall in the centre of Dubbo. An immersive work, a looped soundtrack of piano chords and hard-edged synth layers with Australian native birdsong recordings and sound effects (rain and thunder), accompanied by large-scale abstracted, monochromatic, avian-inspired animations of murmurations, unfolding wingspans, animated birds and falling feathers. The work was developed over six months in collaboration with sound engineer, Wez Thompson, and animator/video producer, Peter Aland. More information
#bringtolightprojects, 2014 – 2017
#bringtolightprojects is about shining a light on the power and delight of contemporary art in regional Australia. It’s not an exhibition and it’s not a festival. It provides regionally-based artists working in multi-media, digital media, installation, projection, filmmaking, sound, performance, hybrid art and art forms not invented yet, a chance to try something different; to maybe collaborate with another artist or simply do something they haven’t done before; and bring art to the people by taking contemporary art outside the walls of the gallery, presenting it in unexpected places and encouraging interaction with the work. Over three annual events, 11 artists from across regional NSW participated, reaching hundreds of people through events held in the centre and peripheries of regional towns, State Forests, town parks, cafes and libraries. See the #bringtolightprojects website
The Coming of Age Project, 2008/09 & 2014
The Coming of Age Project was a six month project documented through blog posts and video interviews exploring issues of art and social ecology, in particular the value placed on the environment by regional communities. Through the project and resulting Western Plains Cultural Centre commissioned exhibition – Perspectives. Art. Ecology. alongside Peter E. Charuk and Gamilarray/Weilwan and Wiradjuri artist, Gail Naden, the project sought to paint a picture of what the environment may look like by 2030 in light of climate change. The community video interview component was revisited in 2014. The Coming of Age Project on blogspot (2009), The Coming of Age video interviews (2009), The Coming of Age video interviews as part of Cementa Festival residency (2014)