Embedded Files
Kooranyi Nyinning: Mammung’s Lost Song is a tactile listening experience developed with Indigenous Tours WA. It invites audiences to sit, listen and feel the deep sound of pygmy blue whale song through an infrasound chair or vibrating platform.
The work connects whale song, ocean life and climate change with Noongar storytelling and listening to Country. Visitors hear and feel low-frequency sound through the body, creating a quiet space to reflect on ecological loss, recovery and our changing relationship with whales.
The experience draws on the story of Mammung, the whale, and the shift from whale oil to whale song. Whales were once hunted as a source of industrial energy. Today, their songs help us understand ocean life, migration, recovery and the need to care for marine ecosystems.
In the installation, whale song is not only heard through headphones. It is also felt through vibration, allowing visitors to experience sound as something physical, environmental and relational. This supports a different kind of climate communication: slower, embodied and grounded in listening.
The work has been developed and presented with Indigenous Tours WA and shared through National Science Week and Aboriginal community events.
Exhibitions/Events
Exhibitions/Events
Danjoo Koorliny Djilba Social Impact Summit | 5/6 Aug 2025
Kooranyi Nyinning: Mammung's Lost Song
Thanks to Danjoo Koorliny Elder Dr Noel Nannup for naming and developing the written description, and Bruce Davies for developing the graphics for this exhibitions and Narissa De Bruin for facilitiating the exhibition. Over 90 experience the chair and a small platform that was developed to stand on and feel the vibrations through the feet.
Exhibition Carbon Vibrations - Infrasound at the Forrest Hall National Science Week event Aug 2023
Over 40 experience the chair and the small platform.
Fires of Wisdom - Documentary Screening | 5 Dec 2025
Fires of Wisdom - Documentary Screening | 5 Dec 2025
Moondanark Kaartdijin / The Carers of Everything | The Practice of Mosaic Burning and Biochar
A documentary which explores the wisdom of traditional mosaic burning and its vital role in healing Country and climate. Dr Jacob Martin consulted on the project and was involved in the cultural burn taking audio recordings of the infrasound from the fire.
At the screening the Whale Chair and infrasound platform was demonstrated as well as recordings of the fire with approximately 20 people participating.
Background
Background
Losing MAMMUNG to the sea
Losing MAMMUNG to the sea
"MAMMUNG is the Noongar name for the whale.
Around 10,000 years ago Western Australia experienced rapid sea-level rise. At that time, the indigenous Noongar people adapted to the loss of almost 30% of their land as the population moved inland ahead of a 'slow moving tsunami'. MAMMUNG the film explores the living memory that Noongar people hold of this event. The film follows Dr Noel Nannup in recalling the significance of places which are now below the sea and explaining the process of change that indigenous people endured through the narrative dreaming story of MAMMUNG the whale.
Indigenous cultures in Australia are one of the very few who have a living memory of a period climatic change that rivals what we are seeing today. MAMMUNG the film challenges us all to ask: can we learn to understand and value this rich body of knowledge as we too adapt to a changing climate? and what awaits us if we don't?"
Image credit: https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/publication/ice-cores-and-climate-change/ Osman, M.B., Tierney, J.E., Zhu, J. et al. Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature 599, 239–244 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03984-4 Shakun, J., Clark, P., He, F. et al. Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation. Nature 484, 49–54 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10915
Stability means peace
Stability means peace
In the Mammung documentary Dr Noel Nannup speaks about a stable climate meaning peace for the people.
Over the last 10,000 years we entered into a uniquely stable period of the climate where the concentration has not changed by more than 20 ppm and the temperature by <1.0 degrees.
A stable climate allowed modern agriculture to thrive as crops relaibly grew in particular regions.
The great flood
The great flood
Twenty to ten thousand years ago changes in the earths orbit around the sun led to a warming of the planet and a melting of glacials. The sea level rise was over 100 metres. Many ancient stories discuss the global flood that ensued and the significant impact it had on coastal people that saw their lands swallowed by the ocean.
The Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation of Boorloo (Perth, Western Australia) have a story of loss from this time.
Land bridge connecting Noongar to Wadjemup
Land bridge connecting Noongar to Wadjemup
Perth Canyon the size of the Grand Canyon
Perth Canyon the size of the Grand Canyon
Google Earth, Data: SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Landsat/Copernicus, LDEO-Columbia, NOAA
Hunted to near extinction
Hunted to near extinction
Starting in 1934 the whaling industry began to be regulated under the league of nations as blue whales had almost completely disappeared from the ocean.
These regulations did not stop the almost complete extinction of blue whale populations by the 1950s.
Listening to the humpback whale
Listening to the humpback whale
In 1970 bioacoustics scientist Roger Payne working with the Navy Engineer Frank Watlington released the Songs of the Humpback Whale [1]. In 2021 [2] Payne told the science magazine Nautilus;
“My idea was, if you can move people emotionally, you can also get them to act. To see if I was right, I started playing humpback whale sounds to friends and other small audiences, and soon it became very clear that these sounds moved people deeply. In fact, some friends wept when they heard them—they’re that powerful.”
[2] https://nautil.us/the-man-who-seduced-the-world-with-whale-songs-2-238297/
Banning whaling
Banning whaling
These recordings inspired the growing Save the Whales movement that led to the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment ten-year global moratorium on commercial whaling.
Return of the blue whales
Return of the blue whales
Since whaling was outlawed there has been a recovering in the numbers enabling the numbers to begin to recover and feeding areas like the Perth Canyon to begin to have blue whales return.
Listening blue whales songs
Listening blue whales songs
Scientists at Curtin's Centre for Marine Science and Technology have been listening to this recovery for the last two decades using underwater microphones. Here is a collection of recordings
Similar recordings from the Australian Antartic Program has shown similar recovery. Here is a collection of recordings and a video below.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse