Judith Nangala Crispin 'Ascending Beings'

Judith Nanagala Crispin
Ascending Beings

“...How can I speak to Country in a language it can’t understand...”
1

“I have no memory of waking. An awareness slowly formed in the dark — scratching
acacia, the strum of powerlines in wind. There had been a voice.
I throw open the bedroom window, admit the calligraphic night. Saturn and Mars are
spiders on the edge of black. The Milky Way, a curving string. Somewhere beyond sight,
Cassini is dropping through Saturn’s rings like a jewel.
Judith.
Wake up.
I surface outside, the way someone drowning strikes upward toward a lit line of air. My
feet sink in lawn, breeze tugs at my pyjamas.
Something is wrong with the sky.
Behind the house, black cypress pines should lift the mountain’s shoulder, in starwort
and bitter pea, until fire trails tumble the leeslope down to the airforce base below. But
tonight’s sky does not disapear behind the mountain. Stars fall to a flat line, a plataeu,
spinifex grasslands thinning to clay. Wind-thrashed salt lakes, opaline as cataracts on the
desert’s eye. And horizon to horizon, low ridges snake out like lines in the Martian dust.
Along the skysill, mares’ tail clouds distort the constellations. Stars appear and vanish
over sleeping creeks. A handspan in front of my face, the air is displaced. An owlet
nightjar drops in blackness, open-beaked and quickened in the bones that hold her. She
hisses and is gone — a flung shadow on the gulf of Magellan’s aerial lakes.
And I saw them then, low on the starfields — a night mirage. A noctilucent shape,
dividing itself into figures. I count five, immense and dingo-headed, striding out in the
direction of deserts. Purposeful as thunderheads, their bodies are wild and dark. Starry.
They camouflage themselves against night’s shifting hollows. Constellations rise and set
in their organs. Their arteries are zodiacal light. A satellite circles a thigh. And always
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And always their anatomy morphs and shifts — sparking cells become galaxies become
electricity, branching out into the sky like lightning.
A caravan of star mongrels walk a horizon that can’t exist. They vanish in cloud,
reappear against the brightest falls of stars. A dream. A vision so strong the world
breaks beside it.
I want to call out — but the half-formed word catches in my throat like a burr. How
can I speak to Country in a language it can’t understand? In the tongue of slave
ships, in this murderous tongue. After all these years, the miracle arrives on my front
lawn, all burning hair electric, and finds me voiceless.
The vision is fading. Dawn returns the mountain, this yard with its hills hoist and
mimosa. The caravan passes west with the first fingers of sun. They’ll be gone in
seconds. In the last breath before waking, I saw one turn back its canine head, like
acknowledgement.
It is morning. The dog sleeps on his snowman and yeti print blanket. Pedalling his
legs, he chases dream brumbies. On the water tank, pied butcherbirds lift up their
voices, gifting this fledgling day their cascading brilliance. Soon the daily news
cycle, the ordinary pressures of email and work. But something is different. I am
different.
Because I know they are out there, somewhere in the north-west. They will trigger
floodlights in the mines and joint military facilities. They will withdraw, following
starlines until the vanishing of roads. Where shale gives rise to bloodwoods, the great
sentinels of desert. Starswarm of leaves and torsos thrumming with owls.
They withdraw to older places — speargrass and comets. The cordon will not hold.
Bombing ranges tattoo strange geometries on the heat-fused clay. In the empty
communities, nightjars surrender their hymns– in a time of weapons and of wind, in
the last age of dingoes.”
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These works are the result of a genuine
collaboration with the landscape. They
are literally constructed from light,
earth and flesh. I love this technique
of lumachrome glass printing for its
ability to make dead animals and birds
seem alive again. It is light alone that
manifests these colours and shapes
- not paint or anything that can be
completely controlled.
I have largely invented this process,
which involves arranging clay, sticks,
leaves, seeds, resin, ochres, etc, with
road-killed animals or birds, on lightsensitised
paper. Exposed 24 to 36 hours,
while the sun arches east to west, fibre
papers produce surprising arrays of
colour. Over this I layer cliche-verre
plates coated with resists of wax or paint,
scratched with wire to create lines.
Sometimes I run electric currents over
these plates to produce crystals in the
ochre. For finer detail, I use chemigram
variants, painting compounds like
selenium or copper chloride directly
onto feathers, scales or fur. I have called
this Lumachrome glass printing because
light produces colours in the emulsion
(Lumachrome) and I use layered
glass plates. The resultant enduring
works are created from ephemeral images,
continually decomposing, simultaneously
exposing in light. I render them in archival
pigments on paper, hand annotating them
with gold/silver leaf, charcoal, graphite
and other markers.
My process is different, adaptive, for
each print. If an animal is still bleeding,
I paint this into the image during
exposure. Ochres, seeds, sticks, and other
materials, are sourced where the animal
or bird was found. If maggots and flies
appear, their tracks are incorporated into
the work. When the print is complete, the
creatures are respectfully buried.
This approach has arisen from my efforts to
reconnect with Country and culture, after
decades of tracing my family’s Indigenous
roots. I am always trying to create a
dialogue with land through my images
and poems—by raising up the smallest of
fallen creatures and bearing witness to
their passing.
Judith Nanagala Crispin, 2024
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On a night of meteor showers and lit uranium mines, Jeremy,
released from his chickenhawk body by a passing truck, unfolds
his thousand-eyed wings
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique
II Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and
charcoal, from a Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram,
drawing. Roadkilled chickenhawk, sand, vegemite, household and
decomposition chemicals, rodinal, graphite, biro, bromide, wax, and
marbles on Fomapan fibre paper. Exposed 47 hours in rainlight in a
geodesic dome
113 x 180 cm
7

Martin dreams a barn owl into being, over Mt Jillamatong, on a
night of flying saucers and stars
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique
II Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and
charcoal, from a Lumachrome glass print, chemigram, cliche-verre
and drawing. Road-killed Eastern Barn Owl, sand, graphite, wax and
ink on fibre paper. Exposed 32 hours in a geodesic dome
172 x 144 cm
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Her wing caught on a barbed wire fence, night becoming day and
the bone pierced. Ruth slips off her owl body, exploding into the
sky over Lake Burley Griffin, to become a sun
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-Verre, Chemigram and
drawing. Trapped deceased Eastern Barn Owl, seeds, feather-top grass,
turmeric, coffee, liquid paper, sulphuric acid and silver chlorides,
exposed 40 hours with electric current, in a geodesic dome
132 x 180 cm
11

At season’s end, fireflies fill the ribbon barks, down by
Shoalhaven river. Sunny, lost to traffic, waits all night for dawn,
for waking fireflies, and weaves a new body from their glow
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-verre, Chemigram, drawing.
Road-killed juvenile hare, twigs, marbles, wax, ochre and seeds on
fibre paper, exposed 46 hours in a geodesic dome
100 x 178 cm
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Vincent rises in the stratosphere, over night-cities, on a line of
zodiacal light - last astronaut of the Rex Hares
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram and drawing.
Road-killed Rex Hare, gold chloride, sand, crayon, diluted vegemite
and felt on fibre paper. Exposed twice over 38 hours in a geodesic
dome, with electric current
169 x 121 cm
15

Marcia sounds her wild freedom songs over the houses of the
bigots
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verse, chemigram, drawing.
Drowned ghost bat, ochre, mud, wax, coloured markers and sand on
fibre paper. Exposed 46 hours in an abandoned car
138 x 148 cm
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She remembered running, baby in pouch, the burrow nearly
visible, birds lifting from the watertank at the first rifle’s crack–
so cold in the long grass, day drops night, and the joey stills. In
the winter sky over Braidwood, Enid finds her baby again, as a
spark in starfields
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique
II Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and
charcoal, from a Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram
and drawing. Shot wombat mother and her frozen joey. Exposed 49
hours, with salt, sand, ochres, gold chloride, white-out and clay, on
fibre paper in a geodesic dome
177 x 137 cm
19

Leaving his wheelchair, Emmanuel drifts over Canberra in the
body of a jewelled shrike-thrush
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram. Roadkill
Grey Shrike-Thrush, seeds, liquid-paper, stalks and petals on fibre
paper. Exposed under marked perspex, 26 hours in rain light
180 x 127 cm
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Lily returns to Altair, the brightest of Aquila’s stars, wearing the
body of a crow
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre. Roadkill crow, ochres
& dandelion seeds on fibre paper. Exposed 32 hours in autumn light
under brushed perspex
180 x 142 cm
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For ascending night-flyers, the lights of Wangaratta grow
increasingly smaller, until they resemble constellations, and the
difference between above and below is lost. Four starlings climb
into a black mirror sky, on their return trip to Zeta Reticuli, star
country of intergalactic birds
Single edition archival pigment on Canson Baryta Photographique II
Matt paper, hand detailed with gold/silver leaf, graphite and charcoal,
from a Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-verre, chemigram, drawing.
Four window-killed starlings, seeds, sand, graphite and household
chemicals on fibre paper. Exposed 46 hours in a geodesic dome
84 x 179 cm
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Selected Biography
Judith Nangala Crispin is an Australian visual artist, and award winning poet and a
descendant of Bpangerang people of North East Victoria. Her skin name, Nangala, was
given to her by the Warlpiri people of the remote Tanami Desert in northern Australia,
a place she has lived for a few months each year for over a decade. Her work includes
themes of displacement and identity loss, a reflection on her ancestry, but it is
primarily centred on the concept of connection with the land. This work forms a part
of Crispin’s ongoing series depicting the transcendent ascending forms of recently
deceased fauna. Crispin’s camera-less method of photography incorporates a range
of processes. Her own developed alternative process of ‘lumachrome glass printing’,
combines elements of lumen printing, cliché verre, chemical alchemy and drawing.
She works within a mobile geodesic dome which functions as a giant lens where light
streams penetrate its plastic walls. The mobility of her studio allows her to go to the
site of her subject, prior to respectful burial. The muse, is raised onto a plastic box,
rested on special photographic paper for up to 50 hours as the passage of sun and
moonlight exposes its posthumous portrait. Each work is viewed as a collaboration
with nature, where honouring the subject is a key objective. In each workork the
animals are diaphanous where light has literally passed through their bodies. They
appear drawn in a primitive motion by a slipstream of spirit, levitating in a space of
brooding luminosity that appears sentient and wholly focused on the task of enfolding
each creature back into its care. The result offers a profound sense of what lies beyond.
Crispin is a proud member of FNAWN (First Nations Australia Writing Network) and
Oculi collective. She holds a Ph. D from the ANU and a Doctor of Arts from the
University of Sydney and has published three books “Pillars of the Temple’ (Cambridge
Scholars Press), ‘The Myrrh-Bearers’ (Puncher & Wattmann), and ‘The Lumen Seed’
(Daylight Books). Her verse novel ‘The Dingo’s Noctuary’ was shortlisted for 2023
Arles Recontres Dummy Book Prize. Her recent prizes include the 2020 Blake Prize for
Poetry and the 2023 Sunshine Coast Art Prize. A representation of Judith’s work ‘At
season’s end, fireflies fill the ribbon barks, down by Shoalhaven river. Sunny, lost to
traffic, waits all night for dawn, for waking fireflies, and weaves a new body from their
glow’, will be deposited on the Moon in 2024, as part of NASA’s Lunar Codex.

Published by Anima Mundi to coincide with ’Ascending Beings’ by Judith Nangala Crispin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or
by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers
Credits:
Page 1-3: ‘Vision 2 (from The Dingo’s Noctuary) The Mongrels’ by Judith Nangala Crispin
Portrait photography: Tracey Nearmy (www.traceynearmy.com)
Anima Mundi . Street-an-Pol . St. Ives . Cornwall . +44 (0)1736 793121 . mail@animamundigallery.com . www.animamundigallery.com

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