Music / “Breathing Space”, by Genevieve Lacey. In the Garden of Australian Dreams, National Museum of Australia. Reviewed by ROB KENNEDY.

MUSIC creates moods and memories and moves us into places that can change the way we think about the world. Music gives us breathing space to reflect and dream.

In the National Museum of Australia, in the Garden of Australian Dreams, Genevieve Lacey’s innovative sound installation “Breathing Space”, completes the idea of the garden being a symbolic landscape that explores place and country.

Known primarily as a virtuoso recorder player, this is not the first installation Lacey has completed. In 2016, she designed a soundscape titled “Pleasure Garden” for the Sydney Festival.

Walking through the Garden of Australian Dreams with the musician, she spoke about how the idea of the installation was to encourage people to linger and experience the garden on multiple levels.

Around 80 artists were involved in the making of the sound installation. One concept behind it was to re-wild the garden, not with plants, but with music and soundscapes. Wildlife, both natural and recorded, can be heard in between the music, such as birds, frogs and cicadas. They experimented with the high and low sounds of wildlife to create the right stability to get nature and the music in balance.

They divided the space into six sound zones. Six original musical compositions live in these zones. Each composition is of a different length and changes based on the seasons. Many ideas were used to create the music. Artists mimicked the sounds of creatures, which are intermixed with the real thing.

Acoustically, some zones are perfectly designed for particular instruments. Such as plucked strings that were used to impressive effect in the somewhat enclosed space known as The Living Room.

To make the spaces work with one another, strict principles were designed, so the harmonisation between the zones was not uninterrupted. Works of only four notes were created to allow other zones to be heard without interference from the other.

They captured field recordings of the natural environment, which can be heard in some zones. Even the sounds of shifting plate tectonics, which were combined with music from a saxophone, this was an amazing experience in a zone called The Tunnel.

Aboriginal songs sing out over the entire garden at times. This offered the most reflective experience. The deep ancient cultural practice of women’s voices echoing and answering words, with a choir responding, completely changed the feeling of the garden. The words come from a text by the Waanyi writer Alexis Wright, a Miles Franklin Award and Stella Prize winner.

This experience was a moving and life-changing collaboration for Lacey. She was almost moved to tears when relating the journey, she, and we went on. Maybe other cultural institutions in Canberra can follow the lead of the NMA and make their outdoor spaces more alluring through specifically designed musical soundscapes.