Christian Thompson:
Taken from my 2021 series New Gold Mountain, my sound work Burdi Burdi (fire fire) is from a body of work I share with my grandmother Harriet Woods (Woods an anglicisation of Lam/Lem/Lim) and our Southern Chinese-Australian gold rush heritage.
Made during pandemic lockdowns, fire and gold became important symbols for me. As a society, our collective fire was dimmed after enduring some pretty challenging times in these last few years, so for me Burdi Burdi (fire fire) is about the fire within—galvanising resolve and persevering through, finding your fire and becoming strong again.
The references to gold come from our gold rush heritage but gold is
