Deep time connections: Language, Lore and the Trapdoor Spider

Deep time connections: Language, Lore and the Trapdoor Spider

How can language, story and care for endemic species reconnect us to place?
In Deep Time Connections: Language, Lore and the Trapdoor Spider, Dr Cass Lynch will reflect on collaboration, habitat protection and the role of language in caring for landscapes. Cass will also share the story of rescuing 40 trapdoor spiders from construction in the Porongurup Range National Park. Sam Shepherd will then prompt some questions.

To complement the conversation, the walls of UDLA’s Walyalup studio will showcase drawings of insects and arachnids endemic to Western Australia. Submit a drawing by 24 March for your chance to win a copy of Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now, featuring a story by Cass Lynch. More information here.

About the event:

Thursday 26 March, 2025 UDLA's Walyalup Studio
(Level 2 Atwell Building, 3 Cantonment Street, Fremantle, WA, 6160)

Doors open 5.30pm
Lecture begins 6pm
Pizza, drinks and chats until 8.30pm

Free event. RSVP essential. Let us know if you’re joining by 20 March

About the speakers:

Dr Cass Lynch
Cass Lynch is a Koreng Wudjari Noongar woman, and is descended from the families of Ravensthorpe in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. She is a writer and Research Fellow, and has a PhD in Creative Writing that explores Noongar stories that reference climate change. She is a committee member of Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories, an Aboriginal corporation who focus on the revitalisation of culture and language connected to south coast Noongar people. She is the co-founder of Aboriginal literature project Woylie Project, which facilitates bringing Noongar stories into print and training community members to be presenters. She has published short stories, essays, and poems, and her multimedia storytelling works have been featured at Perth Festival, Fremantle Biennale, PICA, Arts House Melbourne, CCA Glasgow, and more. Her Noongar language haikus, published in Westerly 64.1, won the 2019 Patricia Hackett Prize. Her short story ‘Split’, a creative impression of deep time Perth, is a key text for high school students studying VCE English in Victoria and can be found in the UQP publication Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now.

Sam Shepherd
Sam Shepherd is one of the team at Kaala Barna - an Aboriginal owned and operated consultancy supporting organisations in Western Australia. Sam is a Jaru woman from Wyndham, with family connections to Halls Creek and Balgo. She studied environmental engineering at the University of Western Australia, where her thesis examined drinking water quality in remote Aboriginal communities. These experiences have shaped her approach to problem-solving and her commitment to navigating the complexities of regional and remote contexts.

About the host:

UDLA is a multidisciplinary design practice with studios in Walyalup and Naarm. With combined expertise in design, strategy and engagement, we deliver landscape-led projects that are grounded in real places and people. Whatever the project, we respond to each site's context with cultural inclusivity and respect.