River Listening Symposium: Before Bluestone Meets Sandstone
Description
Join us for one day of free activities on the Maribyrnong River to practise listening, reflect on place and share knowledge.
Tune into the slow time of the landscape and speculate about possible futures while cruising on the river with the Tramboat.
⏰ When: Sunday 24 May 11am–3:30pm, free lunch provided, see full schedule below
🚢 Where: Meet at Footscray Wharf (opposite 60 Maribyrnong Street, Footscray)
'Before Bluestone Meets Sandstone' speaks to the geological deep time of the Western Volcanic Plain, which shapes the land of Melbourne’s west. Flowing through the plain, the Maribyrnong River witnesses life, extraction and industrialisation as the west develops and changes.
The River Listening Symposium is a one day place-based public program that invites us to explore listening as a way to connect with the Maribyrnong River and its unseen histories. Through guided listening, performance, artist talks and conversations shared over food, the symposium will create a gentle, reflective space for knowledge sharing.
We invited three artists to respond to this context and share ways of being with the waterway through embodiment, listening and exchange.
With Aarti Jadu, Nicholas Burridge, and Geoff Robinson.
Curated by Joy Zhou.
Poster by Zoe Blain.
Places are limited. We kindly ask you to reserve only one session so more participants have the opportunity to board the boat. If you can no longer attend, please cancel your ticket or let us know.
This Activity is supported through Maribyrnong City Council’s Love Your West Grants Program.
Schedule
- 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Tramboat Session 1: Workshop by Aarti Jadu and Talk by Nicholas Burridge
(Arrive at 10:45am for 11am departure) Part 1: Aarti will lead us through a 40-minute workshop to awaken our listening tools as we travel along the river. This group listening activity will involve some gentle breathwork and other mindful practices to activate our sense of curiosity and collectively tune in to the waterway. Part 2: During this performative artist talk, the Maribyrnong River and sculptural artefacts from Nicholas Burridge's practice become vehicles for travelling through time. Drawing on geology, material science and the river's own layered history, the talk will invite us to reconsider the sometimes seemingly static world around us – revealing it as fluid, dynamic and deeply entangled with human industry. Moving between object, story and place, Burridge explores how earth and manufacture mirror one another across vast and intimate scales.
- 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Free catered Lunch
We will continue conversations casually over food at Myrtle Cafe. All welcome! 45 Moreland St, Footscray VIC 3011
- 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Tramboat Session 2: Performance by Geoff Robinson
(Arrive at 2:15pm for 2:30pm departure) Resonant Pollution is a performance iteration of an ongoing project that focuses on listening as a mode of attuning with water ecologies and their entanglements with plastic pollution. This iteration will be situated on the Maribyrnong River and engage live hydrophone listening to plastic pollution collected from the river. The performance will submerge us into the acoustic ecologies of estuarine plants and beings while speculating about a world of accumulating resonant plastics.
About the artists
Aarti Jadu has been experimenting with vocal and movement workshops since 2018.
Her background as a yoga instructor and her profound interest in raag music inspires her exploration of how the body can be tuned to receive generously.
Playing with site, and ways of participation, her workshops offer a way to view oneself as a part of "nature"- not separate from the environment.
Aarti Jadu, image courtesy of the artist.
Based in rural Victoria on the lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung, Wurundjeri and Woi-wurrung Peoples, Nicholas Burridge is a sculptor and installation artist whose practice explores the complex relationship between industrialisation and nature. Focused on earth sciences and the Anthropocene, his work investigates how humans re-engineer the earth through developing processes for manufacturing lava, using explosives to form metals, and building machines to make and erode sedimentary rock. Recent solo exhibitions include Terraformed (2024) at Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery and Built Geologies (2024) at Canberra Glassworks. Burridge is 2025 the recipient of the Helen Lempriere Scholarship.
Nicholas Burridge, Terraformed, image courtesy of the artist.
Geoff Robinson is a Narrm/Melbourne-based artist who creates situated projects that engage listening to connect with the durational layers of place. Often in collaboration, Robinson’s practice highlights ecological tensions between situations and places across time, as a way of understanding past, current, and future relations to ecologies and place.
Recent projects include: Polyphony for Intertidal Ecologies (2025), Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery offsite project, Monmar/Point Nepean; Composition for River Objects (2024), Run Artist Run, Narrm/Melbourne, Durational Situation/Umeälven/3022 (2022), Bildmuseet, Umeå.
Robinson was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2014 and completed a PhD in Fine Art at Monash University, Melbourne, 2018.
Geoff Robinson, Run Artist Run, 2024, image courtesy of the artist.
Access and FAQs
- Accessibility
To board the Tramboat, there are two steps up from the wharf and three steps down to the floor of the vessel. There is a rail available and there will be two crew members assisting both on the wharf and inside the boat.
Wheelchair users would need to be able to manage the stairs, and the chair would need to be lifted onto the boat.
Myrtle Cafe is wheelchair accessible. Everyone is welcome to join for a free catered lunch.
Please send us a message (or leave a note on your humanitix booking) so we can best accommodate your needs.
- How do I get there?
The departure location for the Tramboat is Footscray Wharf, which is on the riverbank near Footscray Community Arts.
Footscray Wharf is about a 15-minute walk from Footscray Station.
Myrtle Cafe is inside Footscray Community Arts and is about a 2-minute walk from Footscray Wharf.
Train
Catch a train to Footscray Station and walk 15 minutes via Bunbury Street. Footscray Wharf is at the end of Bunbury Street.
Please allow extra time for Bus Replacement over the Weekend as the Metrol Tunnel is carrying out works.
Bus
Take the 216 or 402 bus to the corner of Moreland Street and Dynon Road/Hopkins Street, and then walk 5 minutes down Moreland Street. You can also take the 220 bus to the corner of Whitehall St and Napier Street, and walk 5 minutes down Moreland Street.
Parking
Parking is available but may be limited. We encourage using public transport if you are able to. There are free all-day parking on Sundays along Maribyrnong Street, Moreland Street, and at Footscray Community Arts.
- Sensory Environment
The Tramboat has some mild noise when the engine is on. However, there will be times during our cruise when the engine will be switched off to allow time for silence and listening.
- Weather
Both the Tramboat and Myrtle Cafe are sheltered. The event will go ahead in rail or hail. Despite this, we recommend dressing for the weather.
- Toilets
Toilets are available on the Tramboat and at the cafe.
- Tickets and cost
This event is generously supported by the Maribyrnong City Council through the Love Your West Grants Program. All tickets and lunch are free.
Places are limited. We kindly ask you to reserve only one session so more participants have the opportunity to board the boat. If you can no longer attend, please cancel your ticket or let us know.
We cannot guarantee any walk-up availability on the day, and may have to turn you away if you do not book a ticket.
- Contact
You can reach us by emailing info@trocaderoartspace.com.au
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
Get tickets
This event has passedGet tickets
This event has passed