Ironing Maidens share Indonesian community’s story through music and sound

By Greg Chapman

The musical talents of CQUniversity PhD researcher Patty Preece has enhanced an immersive experience in image and live sound on an Indonesian community’s connection to the sea.

Patty and her The Ironing Maidens partner Melania Jack composed and produced Sitting with the Sea - music and multichannel audio - to complement a photographic work by Vickram Sombu and curator Kurniadi Widodo for Dialog Lensa #6, to be performed in Cairns this month.

“This collaboration came about through an existing partnership between NorthSite Contemporary Arts in Cairns and Padepokan Seni Bagong Kussudiardja (PSBK), in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, developed during Regional Regional,” Patty said.

“As part of Dialog Lensa #6, NorthSite and The Ironing Maidens were invited to Indonesia to collaborate with Indonesian artists through that exchange.”

Patty said the project was developed on site in Yogyakarta and first presented there in October last year, before evolving into a new iteration in Cairns. 

“It was a deeply relational process from the beginning - working across cultures, practices, and ways of knowing - and building the work through those relationships.

“For this project, I composed and produced the music and multichannel audio for the live performance, working closely with Melania and in dialogue with the photographic work.”

The photographic images document the Lamalera community in East Nusa Tenggara and their deep connection to land and sea. 

“They carry a strong sense of cultural continuity, labour, and care - and our role in the sound was not to illustrate or explain that, but to sit alongside it and open up space for listening,” Patty explained.

“In the sound design, I worked with field recordings - including whale song (sperm whales) - which I transformed into percussive and emotive elements within the soundscape. These sounds move through the multichannel system, surrounding the audience and creating a shared listening environment that shifts how you experience the images..”

Patty said the process was highly collaborative, but also critically aware. 

“As white Australian artists, Melania and I are not from Lamalera, and we were very conscious of the tensions around authorship and representation,” Patty said. 

“The work is not about speaking for the community, but about creating a space where stories can be encountered, felt and shared - both with audiences and back with the community itself.

“Relationality was really at the core of the work.” 

The project connects closely to Patty’s research which explores sonic interaction and immersive listening through a posthuman lens - particularly how sound can shape relational experiences between people, environments and technologies. 

Patty is also a lecturer in Music and Theatre Technology at CQU and said her work was grounded in creating opportunities for students and communities to engage with contemporary, experimental music practices - regardless of location.

“Projects like this demonstrate how regional institutions can be part of international creative exchange, and how those exchanges can generate meaningful, critically engaged artistic outcomes,” Patty said.

“Being able to test these ideas in a live, cross-cultural context was incredibly important. It pushed the work into a space of responsibility, care and responsiveness.”

The Sitting with the Sea (Dialog Lensa #6) performance will be held on 16 April from 7.30pm at Tanks Arts Centre.

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