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Sky Dialogue

Performance event

George Hotel Tower Balloon Launch.

Date

1998

The following text was written on the 108 balloons that I launched from the George Hotel Tower during my 12 month studio residency. Responses were included in the solo exhibition that I had in the gallery at the conclusion of the residency.

[side A]
This gesture is an inquiry into the existence of a particular kind of bird.

I first heard of this bird when a character named Val talked of its existence in a Tennessee Williams play.

I have been spending some time peering at the sky – when it is unobstructed by clouds – and I have had possible glimpses of this bird.

“It is transparent blue in colour, so it is hard to tell the bird from the sky. It has no legs – at night it spreads its wings and sleeps on the currents of the wind. The only time it lights on the earth is when it dies and falls to the ground. Val had found a dead on once with a body as tiny as your little finger and so light on the palm of your hand it didn’t weigh more than a feather”.

I have been thinking about this bird that has no distractions of landing. It seems it could almost be inseparable from the nature of the sky. So, I have offered this gesture to the sky – to the space that is unstained by my words or actions.

Perhaps this balloon, before reaching you has caught a blue bird by surprise. I have a feeling the bird’s song would be silence, so maybe the balloon and the bird exchanged this empty song.

[side B]
Just now, as I was writing this and paused to gaze to the sky, a bird tried to land on the ledge of the open window beside me. As she did, the building I am in thumped and triggered a gap in my heartbeat. The bird and I momentarily met and as soon as our hearts started to beat again she had flown away and I recognised that I was frightened.

Could she have been a blue bird disguising herself with brown feathers? This encounter was instilled with the bird’s silence and I felt her indicate to me a glimpse of the sky’s nature – the nature that the blue bird could be inseparable from.

If you are able to help me with my enquiry, please write to me, Michelle Tonkin care of the George Gallery, 129 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda 3182. Your response will be part of an exhibition in May, 1999 at this gallery.

My prayer is that we may all know the freedom of this bird.

Date of balloon release, 13 December, 1998

This balloon is biodegradable

I live and work on the unceded lands of the peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation and pay my respects to their elders, past present and emerging. 

© 2022 Michelle Tonkin.

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