John Bennett and John Laidler: Yurruun.ga wetlands – an album

Multi Award winning poet and photographer, John Bennett has teamed up with well-known musician and sound engineer John Laidler, of Okapi Guitars (longstanding Sydney based African Pop Band) to produce a story of hope and beauty, celebrating endangered wetlands reclaimed after years of industrial pollution. John, who also works as a citizen scientist on the site, explains this collaborative project:

“Wetlands are vital habitats, but vanishing faster than rainforests. This artwork explores a newly reclaimed wetland, Yuurrun.ga in Gumbaynggirr Country, NSW. The area housed a mineral processing plant and that left the site dead, poisoned with arsenic, lead, mercury and cyanide.

Sixty videos probe the wetland from a range of perspectives from natural aesthetics to fine art. The videos are ‘photographs’ that extend for 60 seconds. They are not edits excised from longer takes. In times of environmental chaos what can artists do? I undertake regular bird surveys for an ecological restoration journey. Citizen science projects are becoming increasingly important for people and science.”