Requiem for a Reef is a collaborative and immersive work of advocacy for the endangered Great Barrier Reef by artist Ngaio Fitzpatrick, composer Alexander Hunter and nine musicians. The evening will consist of a performance, followed by a Q&A with Ngaio. There will also be a panel discussion with Dr Jennie Mallela (FHEA) who is a Marine expert form the Research School of Biology College of Science at ANU And Professor Mark Howden, Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute.

The work ‘Requiem for a Reef’ exploits the beauty and fragility of glass to capture a crystalline moment of tension and fracture. Like glass, Earth ecosystems exist in a state of equilibrium and once pushed beyond a stable state, will change radically in structure from a state of entropy to a state of rupture triggering a cascade of feedback causing accelerating cycles of more warming and loss of bio diversity.

The project includes an installation of coral made from colourless recycled glass, representing the fragile coral damaged during 3 mass coral bleaching events in the space of 5 years; a suspended panel of toughened industrial glass, a fog machine representing warming and lack of action due to the invisible nature of climate change events and is accompanied by a haunting musical composition using a mix of glass objects and conventional musical instruments.

The event will take place on Thursday the 13th of August at 11:30am.