Foghorns, boat horns, sirens, instruments, voices and a whole lot more is coming Launceston's way with a special opening ceremony for Mona Foma.
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Relay/ Country Remembers Her Name will ask the community to reflect on where they are and their connections to people and place, while including the voices of Palawa people.
Madeleine Flynn, one of the writers of the music for the performance and also the conductor, said the ceremony will see the palawa kani language bouncing off the landscape.
"I hope people will have an experience of curiosity and also pay attention to where we are together. I hope ... that it will be a collective experience of that," she said.
"I think that's what our job as contemporary artists is - to create conversations for people to have that are going to reframe and help us develop understandings based on the oldest understandings."
She said there would be a series of strange and wonderful instruments that would be a part of the performance, with some of the sounds live, some live streamed, and others recorded.
The idea came from Theresa Sainty, a Pakana woman, and from conversations Flynn had with Mona Foma organisers.
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"Tim [Humphrey] and I were thinking about sight and the community," Flynn said.
"So when we started to think about sound markers with sight, which is what foghorns and sirens are, then our first conversations we wanted to have were with Palawa people about sound in a physical space.
"The best of artworks, they come about through invitation and trust."
The work is a huge collaboration with not just Flynn, Humphrey and Ms Sainty but also many other businesses and people.
"These people, who are not necessarily connected with the arts community but say 'yes I want to do that', that's such a gift as an artist," Flynn said.
The artist said she was honoured to be able to participate in the performance as a non-Palawa person.
"The precarity of this time we have been in together - the flip side of that is the deep gratitude of being able to gather and being able to think things collectively. I think that's something that has been really difficult."
Flynn said Mona Foma were amazing to collaborate with and were generous, inclusive and open to all suggestions.
The performance will be held at the Tamar River on January 15 from 4-5pm and at the River Derwent in Hobart on January 24, 12-1pm.
The performance plans to use the rivers as a way to connect the two cities through a physical aspect, which can be translated in both places.
"It feels like, for me, it's an imperative of being an Australian artist that we think about where we are, whose place we are in, and how we work together," Flynn said.
The event is free to see. For more information on the program visit mofo.net.au.