SAMMY HAWKER

Worlds Around Us

Tweed Regional Gallery | 27 jun. — 9 nov. 2025

“...we need to relearn multiple forms of curiosity. Curiosity is an attunement to multi-species entanglement, complexity and the shimmer all around us.” Tsing, A. [et al.] (2017) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene

The artworks in Worlds Around Us are recent interactions between the artist and the more-than-human worlds she encounters. Following the humpback whale cycle of migration along the east coast of Australia, the works explore interspecies dialogue, material presence and how a practice of curiosity cultivates empathy and care.

For this exhibition Sammy co-created 35mm film photographs of the humpback whale migration with ocean water collected from site. She also worked with designer Sam Tomkins to develop an analogue cymatic instrument. Cymatics (from Ancient Greek: κῦμα for 'wave') is the study of making sound and vibration visible.

This cymatic instrument responds to hydrophone recordings of humpback whale songs, projecting the shape of these songs as they vibrate through water on a plate. Sammy has documented these shapes to create a series of cymatic figures.

The whale songs were recorded by Mark Franklin of The Oceania Project off the coast of eastern Australia, during the humpback whales cycle of migration between their birthplace in the Great Barrier Reef and their Antarctic feeding areas. The Oceania Project is a long-term research project established in 1988 by Franklin’s parents, Dr Trish and Dr Wally Franklin, dedicated to raising awareness around humpback whales. The research published by The Oceania Project gives insights into eastern Australian humpback whales' social behaviour and organisation, abundance and reproduction and emphasises the importance of rehabilitation, preservation and conservation of humpback whales and their ocean environment.

This exhibition was supported by artsACT.

This work is a cymatic figure, generated from humpback whale song vibrating through water. This whale song was recorded by Mark Franklin of The Oceania Project on the spring equinox, during the humpback whales southwards migration. The cymatic shape it created feels like a solar eclipse - the fusion of darkness and light  - a portal to another realm. Upon seeing the work one of my friends told me it is how she imagines herself existing after death.

The humpback whale was pushed to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling (estimated around 1000 left in Australian waters in early 1960s) but now their numbers are thriving with over 60,000 swimming up the coastlines this year. A rare good news story in today’s world of environmental degradation and ecological collapse. It was an incredible privilege to spend as much time as I did immersed in Mark’s extraordinary hydrophone recordings of whale song - so many late nights fine-tuning the cymatic instrument in the studio  - whale song emanating around me like a dark glittering fog.