by Annette Peterson.

As ecological instabilities multiply, artists are finding new ways to address environmental changes and crises. Ripairian, a hybrid performance led by academic and social change advocate Dr Vahri McKenzie and curated by Gemma Ben Ary, is a multi-sensory exploration of the significance of the Mandoon Bilya (Helena River) in Western Australia. Presented at Midland Junction Arts Centre and broadcast live from the river site via eight video channels, Ripairian positions the river as both subject and collaborator, merging performance, ritual, and documentation to prompt reflection on human relationships with natural systems.
        The word, riparian, derives from the Latin “ripa”, meaning riverbank. Ecologists today use this word to describe the space between a river and the surrounding floodplain or wetland area of a river system. Ripairian presents the Mandoon Bilya and its surrounds as a living, relational being linked to human and ecological stories. The Ripairian production features the interplay of the natural and built elements on the Mandoon Bilya. Through skits and role-playing, the Riparian Ensemble explores interactions among components across various sites and scenes. Made up of ten local artists, including Omri Valtolina and Luca Rossetti-McKenzie, the ensemble was filmed by videographers Cassandra Tytler, Michelle Hall, and Jacob Lehrer.
        The central theme recurring in the work is that of imprinting: how landscapes and bodies leave visible, lasting marks on one another. These imprints emerge as physical marking, cultural transformation and ecological shifts, and reflect the ongoing legacies of colonisation, acts of care, and the passage of time. By staging these interactions, the performance challenges the notion of nature as a passive backdrop, instead inviting the audience to recognise their active role in shaping the river’s story.
        Part drama, part comedy, the performance begins with the emergence of a humanoid creature, distinguished by its own ‘trash tail’; a physical and symbolic extension of its identity that represents the enduring impact of human waste. This creature is soon ‘imprinted’ by other analogous beings, each dragging their own style of ‘trash tail’, and demonstrates how individuals absorb traces and influences from those around them. When aligned, the group seems to grow and progress as one, steadily but slowly. Interaction is inferred through multiplication, much like a growing body.
        In another scene, yoga participants are increasingly marked by fresh paint on their mats, further reinforcing the idea that the effects of the exchange are unavoidable. The paint, rolled on by undeterred offsiders onto the mat, leaves an inevitable imprint as the performer continues their routine. The scene, infused with humour, is unique and engaging, highlighting the inevitability and embodied nature of these connections, making the abstract concept of imprinting tangible and relatable to the audience.
        Next, one of the most remarkable scenes was a group performance in which people covered existing graffiti with Arum Lily printed wallpaper. The scene begins with the performers dancing in unison to techno music. As an interconnected body, they then move quickly to apply the wallpaper. The rolling out of the wallpaper at speed draws attention to the invasive qualities of the white Arum Lily. Native to South Africa and now widespread in Western Australia’s waterways, the Lily is both beautiful and destructive, reminding audiences of colonial botanical histories and the tension between aesthetic pleasure and environmental harm. Not only are they toxic to native animals, but they also rapidly form their own colonies that deny native plants and living matter essential nutrients.
        The layering of wallpaper over man-made pollution (i.e., graffiti) is also symbolic of how layers of ecological and emotional traces accumulate over time. The artists’ use of these traces also gestures towards the futility of attempting to remove them: like graffiti, pollution, or erosion, some marks cannot be fully erased. Most importantly, this moment of the performance captures a central tension evident in ecofeminism: care is not always about resolution but about witnessing and maintenance.
        In the gallery, the tension becomes more tangible. The walls of the small gallery space are covered with the same busy Arum Lily wallpaper print, creating a sense of claustrophobic beauty. In the seductive dim light, the lily pattern—made with deep, earthy dyes sourced from the Mandoon Bilya site—envelops viewers in a visual density that contrasts the plant’s aesthetic appeal to the reality of its invasiveness. Various artworks of the Lily, including paintings, drawings, and sculptural forms adorn the walls and the centre of the room. Also featured are artefacts from the Mandoon Bilya site, old bottles, a trash tail and an imprinted suit by one of the yoga performers. These artefacts reinforce the Lily as a marker of the complex relationship between beauty, colonisation, and ecological change.
        The live performance extends the concept of multiplicity using multimedia layering. Eight simultaneous video feeds, edited in real time by Georgi Ivers and accompanied by Michael Terren’s improvised music, create an environment of movement and dissonance. The fragmentation of sound and image mirrors the river’s shifting surfaces, where human and nonhuman forms meet, collide, and dissolve. The work refuses a single narrative or stable perspective, instead evoking the fluidity and uncertainty inherent in ecological systems.
        Before the Ripairian performance, a smoking ceremony and Welcome to Country led by Walter McGuire was held on site, accompanied by Francesca Flynn and the Bibbulmun Ngarna Aboriginal Association. This moment grounded the work in Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar, acknowledging ongoing custodianship and cultural continuity. Furthermore, the performance took place during Kambarang, the Noongar season of birth and renewal, aligning human time with the cycles of Country.
        This cultural and ecological grounding positions Ripairian at the intersection of ecofeminist and decolonial thought. Ideas rooted in lived experience and physical presence that value embodied knowledge are emphasised, while patriarchal and colonial systems are challenged in the exhibition’s promotion of autonomy and ecological awareness. While the performance critiques systems that dominate both women and nature, it avoids the tendency to generalise those experiences. Instead, it recognises the specific histories and responsibilities of place, making Indigenous knowledge central to its framework.
        The participatory nature of Ripairian supports this approach. Viewers are invited to enter the sensory environment, experiencing sound, movement, and atmosphere as part of the river’s story by being immersed in the livestream, thus expanding these relationships and blurring the lines between art, community, and ecology.
        In Ripairian, imprinting becomes more than a metaphor as it actively models behaviours for viewers to follow. The performance climaxes with personal and emotional narratives of care and the relationship to the site, which helps the audience locate and identify the reciprocal relationships that form between people and their environment in the physical, emotional, and cultural interactions that shape both the land and those who encounter it. The work refuses resolution, preferring attentiveness and presence. This is exemplified in the last act, in which the performers cross over a broad area of the river, first in an orderly manner and then with increasing randomness, culminating in personal cameos where the performers walk towards the camera and directly address the audience, leaving a lasting impression on the audience’s mind. On the screen, with their faces, gestures and facial expressions larger than life, emotions were amplified. Some were sincere, overflowing with gratitude; others were humorous and endearing; all were engaging.
        Overall, Ripairian stands as a compelling example of contemporary ecological performance. It neither instrumentalises art nor idealises nature but creates a space of shared vulnerability and reflection. In its careful balance of ritual, research, and sensory immersion, the work invites audiences to reconsider what it means to live in relationship with a place, and to recognise that every gesture, like every river mark, leaves an imprint.

Vahri McKenzie and Gemma Ben-Ary, Ripairian, 
Midland Junction Arts Centre, 7 September – 7 November 2025.

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Images:

1. Vahri McKenzie and Gemma Ben-Ary, Iso Dawn (detail), 2024. Photograph by Christophe Canato.

2. Vahri McKenzie, Trash Tail, video still, 2024. Videography by Michelle Hall.

3. Vahri McKenzie and Gemma Ben-Ary, Iso Dawn (detail), 2024. Photograph by Christophe Canato.