inside & outside & inside

method/practice/medium: walking, chalk, bark, tree, time

process/score: walk a well-walked track with significant bark-shedding trees on either side. Collect the largest section of shed bark that can be found, as close to the tree as possible. Document the location and carry the bark back to the studio.

Choose a text written or spoken by your mourned being, an appropriate length to be written in chalk on the size of your bark. Burn incense in the studio while transcribing the text in chalk onto the bark. Live with the words in the studio for as long as you are there. On leaving, return the chalked bark back to the original tree and leave it there for the chalk to fade over time. Return, if you can, to document the fading chalk text.

Made at Bundanon in April and then in September 2025

walk 1 april

So it's possible to find yourself, now and then, to find yourself free in the world. To levitate into liberation now and then. It's possible to be inside and outside and inside.

Ross Gibson

re-inscribed bark walked back into the forest wearing wagga mourning shroud

walk 2 september

Original bark poem from April, faded but still in situ, July 2025

Original bark poem from April, text faded but still in situ, start of second residency, Sept 25

Re-inscribing original text onto section of original bark poem, Sept 25

re-inscribed bark walked back into the forest as part of walking incense, end of week 1

walk 3 september

How can we learn to live well with the knowledge that all times - the past, present and future - are always in each other?

Ross Gibson

re-inscribed bark walked back into the forest as part of walking incense, end of week 2

"inside & outside and inside" is linked to the "walking incense" aspect of the nocturnal kinship cycle

Photo credits: Kathryn Bird, Lucrezia Brotto, 2025

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