Abstract

Drawing on McCormack’s (2013) notion of fieldworking and Hawkin’s (2011) suggestion of ‘doings’, this chapter seeks to capture the unfolding of the performance of an Australian folk song in a sheep shed. This performance was part of a workshop held at an historic pastoral property owned and operated by Sovereign Hill, an open-air museum in Victoria. We wanted to explore the dynamic change in the region’s environments, landscapes and waterways, acknowledging that they are shaped and shared by humans and non-humans alike. We tasked ourselves with a provocation: to work in small groups and respond to the landscape around us using whatever types of approach, materials and practices we chose. Here we explore one of those provocations, listening to a colleague’s haunting rendition of the folk song, ‘Flash Jack from Gundagai’ in a shearing shed. Our exploration of this draws on non-representational theory—or more-than-representational theory—as an attempt to capture the ephemeral nature of a lived and living experience through art practice, specifically through music.