As above, so below
As above, so below
Our Celestial Counterpane and Park Google Reviews
Celestial Counterpane (Mel de la Haye Park)
A counterpane is a bedspread. If we deconstruct the compound word, counter can mean a factor used to give one party an advantage in negotiations and pane means a single sheet of glass in a window or door. It becomes an advantage window or a privileged perspective, for focusing and directing the gaze. Installed in Mel de la Haye Park on the “viewing platform” (more about this to come), Celestial Counterpane intermittently hides and reveals parts of our periphery while reframing the sky, the grass, the horizon and the water in a series of fleeting, shifting glimpses at the discretion of the wind.
Noticing, listening and engaging with microcosms within everyday spaces like a public park, perhaps normally blurred and inaccessible through the urgent hum of productivity and capitalism-induced stressors, requires the body and mind to be in a restful and open state. This condition is hard to prioritise in this paradigm. The Celestial Counterpane is an invitation to seek this state in a publicly accessible space (a local public park).
The Celestial Counterpane is our first collaborative interstructure* for Mel de la Haye Park. It was made in the spirit of multidimensionality and with a self-directed provocation to connect to this space with a new awareness. The Celestial Counterpane asks; How can we see differently? What senses can we activate in a new way? Who can we meet here? Is there a new language/s to learn? What is the wind trying to tell us? How far up does the park reach?
Celestial Counterpane receives a moth blessing
Weather Report º
Reading
Books
Shallow Waters by Bureau Lada, about the shifting geographies of two extreme urban deltas. Bureau LADA is Lada Hršak, Marijana Krizmanić, Ludovica Beltrami and Juliette Gilson.
Diagrams of Power: Visualizing, Mapping, and Performing Resistance brings together the work of designers, artists, cartographers, geographers, researchers and activists who create diagrams to tell inconvenient stories that upset and resist the status quo. Edited by Patricio Dávila.
Park Google Reviews:
Nice quiet park. Used to love coming here from our place in Star Ave in the 90s.
Clean and nice new playground, shady relaxed seating to look out over the water.
– Rob, Mel de la Haye Park (5 stars)
A lovely urban spot.
Free BBQ
Beautiful views to the west
Playground for the kids
Rubbish bin.
No toilets.
– Joshua, Jim Slorach Park (5 stars)
Meet Fellow Park Citizens
Sting Rays
Wayam (from Bundjalung-Yugambeh Online Dictionary, Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Cooperative)
Dasyatis fluviorum (latin name)
Shown to us by a fellow park visitor, this sting ray was a quiet presence in Jim Slorach Park canal. We discovered they are Ovoviviparous, which means they produce young by means of eggs which are hatched within the body of the parent. Stingrays cling to the bottom of canals and create small pits in the bed as they feed; sifting through sand and sediment.
Magpies
Kulamburum (from the the Modern Yugambeh Language Dictionary – 1st Edition Orthography)
Gymnorhina tibicen (latin name)
Magpies are, so far, our most committed and enthusiastic companions. A conventicle of five have shared their favourite spots in Mel de la Haye park with us. In exchange for their guide and song, we have shared our lunches – their favourite biscuits seem to be Scotch Fingers.
Groups of magpies can be referred to as:
a conventicle of magpies (a secret or unlawful religious meeting, typically of non-conformists)
a gulp of magpies
a mischief of magpies
a parliament of magpies
a tribe of magpies
a tiding of magpies
What is the wind trying to tell us?
*Interstructures are reciprocal structures, systems, services and facilities designed to support living beings (human and more-than-human), communities and ecologies. Interstructures are not optimised for economic advantage, instead they prioritise planetary survival and a shift toward everyday, relational ways of being.