Birds and water- a pair that indicates
vitality, a dynamic system, a system
that changes season by season. But
in our unsettling of the land we have
removed the seasons and the birds

Susan Hawthorne

Unsettling the Land is a reflection on the plight of the land in these drought-addled times, conjuring through both text and illustration the complex relationships that create and sustain our unique Australian landscape in all its majesty, tranquillity, and its present suffering.

This chapbook, Unsettling the Land, is a celebration of a marvellous thirty-year friendship between Suzanne Bellamy and Susan Hawthorne. They have produced many combined performance works in Australia and overseas, combining image, music, circus and text. The Drought Project curated by Lella Cariddi, opened up a new way of joint production with Susan's poem taking visual form in Suzanne's art which in turn created additional poetic text.