About

Lunar Time:
Living Data Library

What? This is a place for engaging your thoughts and feelings in stories of human relationship to nature told through art and science. Stories come from the project, Seeding Treaties: Voices from the Southern Ocean that will culminate in 2022 to coincide with publication of the International Panel of Climate Change (IPPC) Report, and lead into the 2023 Global Stocktake to measure – and communicate – how countries are meeting the Paris Agreement targets.

Why? Connections between people are what make a healthy planet and stories that connect peoples' personal stories with knowledge from Western science and Indigenous ecological science can promote understanding of the importance of the Antarctic Treaty, and of all treaties, as agreements people make for sustaining life together.

How? Stories are arranged according to Indigenous ways of knowing identified by Tyson Yunkaporta (2019) as minds that work together to give a holistic view: kinship, story, dreaming, ancestor and pattern. A puppet Pedestrian is provided as an avatar for moving and imagining yourself as part of the stories. To inspire more immediate and intimate relationships with people, lands and waterways that sustain us, each library entry is animated and comes with a story of when, where, and from whom the knowledge comes.

Who? Lisa Roberts leads this project to generate, collect and present stories, with artist Maddison Gibbs, software engineer Cat Kutay, artist/educators Tiriki Onus, Paul Fletcher and Lynden Nicholls, scientist/educators Katherina Petrou and Claire Sives, art consultant Elisabeth Johnson, and IT consultant Michael Lynch.

L-R: Maddison Gibbs, Lisa Roberts, Katherina Petrou; Menindee Fish Kill by Melissa Williams-Brown in collaboration with Bonita Ely, with Antarctic flows image by Lisa Roberts. Photos: Sandy Edwards, 2019

Why travel? Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung artist and educator Tiriki Onus:

I love that this project travels, physically and virtually, and the whole metaphor of travel as migratory patterns that are kind of linear but not, as well... if we travel down to the Murray river, every time we come to a new language group there's a new name for that river which we Yorta Yorta call the Dhungala. There's also a new creation story for that river. We travelled up and down that river through time. The river was our highway. And so, we were able to be well-informed diplomats who could move from country to county, from language to language, and acknowledge all those stories happening in the same place, and with that same river. I believe this project has the potential to open up young minds to the true meaning of Treaties as agreements people make to live well together.

Why the moon? Living Data collaborating scientist William Gladstone asks, "What happens under Antarctic sea ice at full moon?" Knowledge of lunar cycles is essential for 'immediate and intimate' responses to country that Bill Gammage characterises as Indigenous (Youtube, Feb 13, 2012). Guided by Shawn Wilson (Research is Ceremony, 2008), I learn that relational ways of knowing are available to everyone.

Why the Flannel flower? The Flannel flower signifies a message in the Dreaming story told by D'harawal knowledge holders Frances Bodkin and Gawaian Bodkin-Andrews, that there are times when we must listen to the voices of the young (TALARA'TINGI: How the Flannel Flower Came to Be, 2001). My hope is that this project will inspire you to make your own library with stories from your relationships with nature, specially your relationships with young people who are our future.

Lunar Time: Living Data Library

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Lunar Time:
Living Data Library