Aphids: Crawl Me Blood

Overview

You're invited to experience the Royal Botanic Gardens as never before, when it plays host to an immersive sound and video installation, titled Crawl Me Blood, later this month.

Brought to life by Melbourne artist collective Aphids — as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival, from August 29 to September 1 — the roaming nighttime production debuted in the Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens in Hobart earlier this year.

It's inspired by Caribbean author Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea and is named after a Caribbean phrase that means 'the secrets that you sense but are not told'. Here, audiences will dive deep into an exploration of race and identity.

You'll get an FM transistor radio, a map and some Dutch courage (i.e. rum), then be led through a series of scenes unfolding across the gardens. Imagined in the form of a radio drama, the work shares the story of a young Aussie woman traveling to the Caribbean for her grandmother's funeral, and will be performed by a group of artists that all have ties to the to the Caribbean region.

Expect plenty of visual delights and a soundtrack packed with dancehall, ragga and calypso tunes.

Intrigued? You can watch a teaser for the installation here.

Images: Bryony Jackson