Nagula Girradiny/Oceans of the Moon is a location-based augmented reality experience that brings to life significant cultural elements from Yawuru Country, including the Baylor shell and the moon pool. Anchored in the Djugun-Yawuru dreaming story of the full moon, the work shares the powerful narratives of the Blue man and the Moon man – revealing how the moon came to rest in the sky. These ancestral stories are woven with Latin astrology, connecting ancient Greek and Roman cosmologies with Indigenous knowledge systems to show how all cultures have looked to the stars for meaning. By embedding cultural memory into contemporary landscapes through immersive technology, the work overlays Yawuru Country onto the gallery space, allowing Perth/Boorloo to experience a deep and shared relationship with the cosmos.

Michael Jalaru Torres is a Djugun-Yawuru man with ancestral ties to the Gooniyandi/Jabbir Jabbir/Ngarluma peoples. Based in the Kimberley, his fine art photographer explores identity and contemporary social and political issues facing Indigenous communities, often through a personal and political lense. His work has been widely exhibited, including the 2022 solo show Jurru at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Michael Ovens is a software developer with eight years experience building virtual and extended reality experiences with Unity. He has completed and released more than a dozen research, education, and simulation products for the Australian tertiary education sector, including complex medical visualisations and interactive neuroanatomy puzzles. Before becoming a software developer, Michael was a historian with multiple peer-reviewed publications. He spent ten years studying the martial arts of medieval and early modern Europe to obtain a PhD from the University of Western Australia.

Sean Cashman is a versatile Australian game developer and former Ubisoft UI Technical Artist with a passion for intuitive design and immersive game worlds. With over a decade of expertise across technical game design, 3D art and animation, and VFX, he brings a rigorous, detail-oriented approach to each project.For Nagula Girradiny/Oceans of the Moon, Sean has built a series of striking 3D objects that sit within an immersive contemporary art context — including the Baylor Shell, Moon Pool, and Moon Boy. Each responds to the vision of the Lead Artist and contributes to richly imagined, world-building environments. With a strong foundation in Unity development and a commitment to visual storytelling, he continues to push the boundaries of interactive art and design through technically robust, concept-driven work.

Timmah Ball is a writer and zine maker of Ballardong Noongar heritage. In 2022 she published the chapbook Do Planners Dream of Electric Trees? through Glom Press/Arts House and has featured in a range of anthologies such as This All Come Back Now, Shapeshifting, Words to Sing the World Alive, University of Queensland Press and Best of Australian Poems 2022; Australian Poetry. She has also developed site specific and immersive work including Exploding the Maribyrnong for ACCA’s Who’s Afraid of Public Space (2020) and Disorganising the General Residential Zone for Liquid Architecture (2021). From 2021 to 2023 she was an Arts House Makeshift Publics resident and facilitator which sought to unearth new configurations of the spaces we share. Most recently she worked in curatorial and archival roles at AGWA and the SLWA.

Images: Michael Jalaru Torres, Nagula Girradiny/Oceans of the Moon, 2025, boorda yeyi Intensive Mentorship Open Studio, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Courtesy of the artist. boorda yeyi Intensive Mentorship Open Studio, 2025, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Photo: Tristan McKenzie.

Header image: Michael Jalaru Torres, Nagula Girradiny/Oceans of the Moon, 2025. Image courtesy of the artist.