Congratulations to gallery artist Tim Georgeson who was recently awarded a second grant from Creative Australia for his upcoming project NIGHTNESS!

NIGHTNESS : is an immersive film, voice, and sound installation that explores ancestral memory, songlines, and Palawa knowledge of celestial navigation through the dark skies of Lutruwita / Tasmania. Developed in collaboration with Pakana scholar and Dark Sky advocate Theresa Sainty, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Palawa musician Dewayne Everettsmith, composer Georgia Scott, sonic innovator Bob Scott, and astrophysicists from the University of Tasmania and the Powerhouse Museum, the work approaches the night sky as a living archive of cultural knowledge, ecological memory, and cosmic orientation.

At its centre is an Aboriginal Tasmanian cosmology that understands land, water, sky, culture, and non-human life as existing in continuous relation. Through Georgeson’s immersive visual language, the work unfolds as both cinematic journey and contemporary cartography, tracing forms of knowledge encoded in darkness and carried across generations. Blending moving image, orchestral composition, Aboriginal voice, field recordings, and deep-space sonifications, NIGHTNESS brings Indigenous knowledge systems into dialogue with contemporary astronomy, revealing the night sky as a site where ancestral memory, scientific inquiry, and ecological intelligence converge.

Created at a moment shaped by climate instability, artificial illumination, technological acceleration, and renewed fascination with space exploration, the work considers darkness not as absence but as cultural and ecological infrastructure. It proposes that the preservation of dark skies intersects with the preservation of language, biodiversity, ceremony, and living cosmologies. As contemporary life increasingly orients itself toward virtual worlds and planetary futures, NIGHTNESS turns toward deep time and Sky Country, asking what forms of knowledge, connection, and collective stewardship become possible when we learn once again to navigate by the stars.

Created by acclaimed artist Tim Georgeson, a multidisciplinary visual artist working across film, photography, installation and sound. His practice is grounded in environmental and climate justice, and shaped by deep engagement with cultural knowledge systems.

Project Partners:
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Ten Days on the Island, University of Tasmania (UTAS), Plimsoll Gallery, Dark Sky Tasmania, Powerhouse Museum, The Editors, Fujifilm, Creative Australia, Berggruen Institute Press, Noema Magazine, Taylor & Hinds Architects, Parks Tasmania, Hobart City, Cradle Mountain Lodge, Freycinet Lodge, Pumphouse.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative