THE GRASSENING
The Servo, Port Kembla NSW, 2025
WINNER - 2026 Australian Urban Design Awards, Research and Advocacy
The Grassening is an immersive sound and video installation that listens to the quiet intelligence of the earth — to the frequencies that hum beneath roots and the subtle signals of renewal. Using specialised technology, electromagnetic impulses from native grasses and plants were recorded and woven into the composition, transforming the invisible into something heard and felt. By making the inaudible audible, the work deepens our reciprocal relationship with Country — inviting us to remember what lives in our blood: the ancestral knowing and memory that bind us to this land and guide our love, care, and custodianship. Created across the Illawarra grassy woodlands, The Grassening is both an act of listening and a gesture of reconnection — a reminder that the earth is always speaking, if we slow down to hear it.
Multichannel soundscape
Duration: 15:45
Composed by Nicole Smede