A collaboration between Leila and Melvin J. Montalban, Shake The Dust Off Your Wings, was presented in partnership with The City of Sydney and The Galeries, in June 2021. This was the first installment of The City of Sydney’s Artist in Residence program.
Shake The Dust Off Your Wings 2021 Video art installation at The Galleries. Still photography by Wes Nel.
Artist statement
The human world unfolds at a pace that is frantic, a speed that is constantly escalating. But 2020, a year marked by the Australian bushfires and the global pandemic, forced us take a breath and reflect on the ways in which our trajectories were moving at a rate we can’t sustain. This three-channel video work, Shake the dust off your wings, evolved as a response to the lessons learnt during this time of pause and introspection. The phrase Shake the dust off your wings, is a metaphor for swapping old ways of living for those that reflect the cycles of nature. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu put it in the 6th century BC, ‘Nature does not hurry and yet everything is accomplished.’ This collaboration is designed to put us in meditative state, free us from the urge to relentlessly ‘do’ and reconnect us with the present moment. It shows us how the natural world can slow our internal rhythms while delivering the gift of peace and awe.
Filmed inside Taronga Zoo’s Living Classroom, and exhibited with thanks to Samsung, the work features music by Nick Wales and cinematography by Chris Bryan.
Shake The Dust Off Your Wings installed at The Galleries. Video and still photography by Wes Nel.
Behind the scenes filming in the Living Classroom at Taronga Zoo. Video and still photography (here and below) by Wes Nel.
For enquiries about leasing or acquiring ‘Shake The Dust Off Your Wings’ please contact us here