WAKABUMA (LIFT)
The Lock Up, Moolumbinba (Newcastle) NSW, 2025
Wakabuma (Lift) rises as a counterpoint to Butji (Carry) as a breath of emergence and return. Composed for Karla Dickens Locked On exhibition, it traces the moment where weight becomes transformed, where the heavy is held and begins to move again. Voices, air, and ocean converge within Karla Dickens’ installation, transforming the resonance of confinement into release. The soundscape gathers fragments of plant, Country and animal kin in an uprising of spirit that remembers freedom as an ancestral rhythm. Wakabuma invites listeners to lift with it, to feel the currents of hope and resistance that ripple through every note, carrying us toward light.
Multichannel soundscape
Duration: 6:24
Composed by Nicole Smede