I have been fortunate to spend the past few weeks at Bilpin at BigCi doing a residency with the fellow artists:

Amaya Lang is an artist, writer and teacher living on Gadigal Land/Sydney.

She is currently working on a novel that explores the themes of addiction and resilience, and the stumbling search for wholeness through relationships and art.

At BigCi she hopes to experience how immersion in natural landscapes can induce creativity and flow states.

At Open Day she will read an excerpt from her novel in progress, as well as share ideas she has collected during her residency from artists, writers and musicians on approaching creative tasks through a lens of play and curiosity.

Allis Hamilton lives and creates poetry, music and visual art on Dja Dja Wurrung country, Victoria.

During her time at BigCi, Allis is following the whispering threads of vision, story and myth sung within her bones by her ancestors, and the plants and creatures around her, to remember the sacred story of all things.

Her work is centred in the natural world, and within the natural world of her own body; exploring her experiences within this astonishing miracle we call life. Centred around horses, birds, herbs and water, Allis writes to find healing, and to remember her way back home.

Rae Howell is an Australian composer, performer, and director of multi-art form projects. Her work is inspired by patterns in nature and highlights poignant environmental concerns that emerge from the buzz of a bee, the call of a bird, or the hammer of a piano. The focus of her BigCi residency is the beauty of birdsong in the Wollemi National Park, with a particular emphasis on the musical complexity of bird calls.
A short film about Rae's previous award-winning project Bee-Sharp Honeybee will be screened throughout the day. Developed via extensive research into the rhythm, pitch, and 'waggle dance' patterns of bees, Bee-sharp Honeybeeculminated in a large-scale production of string orchestra, synchronised with live animated projections and a honeybee hive, streamed live throughout the performance.
Rae Howell is the Winner of BigCi Environmental Award 2022.

Iella (Daniela Attard) is a UK-based Maltese visual artist and designer. Most of her work is figurative and illustrative, exploring themes of fantasy, climate change, and existentialism.

While at BigCi, she has been developing the early pieces for a large project entitled 'Migration Nation' - a body of work about Climate Migration.

People are increasingly forced to leave their homelands due to environmental changes, including sea level rise, extreme weather, drought, and water scarcity. Factors such as political instability or apathy, capitalism, conflicts and poverty also add to the complexity of the causes of climate migration.

Iella is also working on a side project - studying and drawing the natural landscape, focusing on flora affected by wildfires.