Alison Clouston & Boyd

Artist Statement

Animal Archive, 2025

Salvaged wood, bark, horse equipment, metal, straw, moulted hen feathers, sound and video.

We are collaborators in sculpture and sound. We love to work with new environments and communities, human and more than human. Our research and immersive installations face the climate and extinction crises. We work with scientists, Traditional Owners, landholders and ecosystems.

Our materials are site-specific, raw and physical, or recorded with high-tech devices. For instance a salvaged whole tree became a sculptural work with soundscapes informed by Indigenous Language and field recordings. For “Animal Archive”, videos were contributed by passionate horse and hen keepers. Dingoes crossed our trail cameras. Koalas hid in the canopy. We amplify them all. Moulted feathers make a horses’ fetlock, and wood split by axe and froe becomes an archive of books and files knotted with the long memory of trees.

We heard the animals of the bush and the backyard, and the animals of the Berry Show; their voices have spurred our research into the long and complicated history of our human engagement with animals domestic and wild, and what it means for our possible futures.

About the Artist

Alison Clouston & Boyd are artists who work between an isolated bush block in the Southern Blue Mountains and Bundeena, collaborating across sculpture, installation, sound, and performance. They have exhibited in numerous regional galleries, artist run initiatives, and festivals both in urban and rural settings.

With soundtrack and sculpture, materials found in the bush and the city, inspired by story and ecological research, Alison & Boyd bring together science, history, poetry and myth. Their immersive installations are often participatory and performative, engaging with diverse communities and often working with First Nations people. Soundtracks might include the voices of musicians, choirs, Indigenous Language speakers or field recordings. Alison & Boyd are recipients of the Fishers Ghost Contemporary Art Award (2021)and Creative Australia, NAVA and Create NSW grants.

‘Animal Archive’ will be activated here at 1pm Friday - Sunday. The voices of the animals can be heard via the PA system on the hour between 10am-3pm daily

The artists will also walk in the OpenField Arts Parade at 4pm on Saturday 14 June.