Mangroves are complex, dynamic habitats shaped by interwoven relationships between species, land, and water. Yet, their acoustic environments, influenced by tides, wind, animal movement, and complex rhythms, remain largely unexplored. Future Sonic Ecologies invites audiences to experience immersive sound installations, field recordings and visual materials that highlight these multispecies voices and environmental signals.
Underpinned by Pratyay Raha’s PhD research at RMIT University’s School of Art, this exhibition highlights listening as an active, critical method for engagement, urging audiences to attune to non-human worlds and question human-centric perspectives. It considers sound both as scientific data and as a medium for speculative art, encouraging discussions on conservation, environmental change and regenerative futures. The materials featured in the exhibition were recorded across various mangrove ecologies in India’s Sundarbans, as well as in Mornington Peninsula, Victoria and North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, in Australia.
Through sensory engagement and collective reflection, Future Sonic Ecologies aims to deepen our understanding of mangrove environments and inspire responsive action for their protection, reminding us that the future of these worlds depends on listening, collaboration, and care across species boundaries.
Future Sonic Ecologies: Re-making mangrove worlds through posthuman soundscape(s) is a part of the On-Site exhibition suite, a project showcasing the creative research of RMIT postgraduate candidates.
Join us to celebrate the opening of this exhibition, Wednesday 25 February from 5–7pm at First Site Gallery.
Thumbnail image: 'Mangroves in the Sundarbans', Satjelia Island, 2024. Image courtesy of Pratyay Raha.
'Portable Stillness' (2025), is an ongoing spatial installation that explores how the making of miniature objects and floating altar-like displays can express memory, collection, and the domestic in transition. Motivated by the instability of diasporic living and continual relocation, Ko Jou Chen constructs handmade structures that carry memory and presence across her shifting environments.
'Slip' is a practice-led research project that explores the poetic qualities of the bluestones that have been discarded in recent construction works around RMIT University. Through the process of moulding and casting these stones into beeswax, Noah Bridger hopes to reimagine Melbourne’s urban landscape.
Chloe Rose Thomas’ exhibition, 'Can I Hold You?' centres on queer community and embodied practices of care, exploring what it means to take traditional photographic portraits of non-normative bodies and the histories they represent.
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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