Croc! Dive out accessibility tourCroc! Dive out accessibility tour 

Croc! Lost Giants to Living Legends, Dive out audio description and transcript includes:

• Reflection
• Crocs in seagrass video
• Spirit Removed
• Closing statement

You have moved into the final section of the exhibition. On the wall decorated with a photograph of a starry night sky, a text panel reads:

Crocodiles are amazing animals, whose superb adaptations have seen them survive for hundreds of millions of years.

Humans have lived alongside these incredible creatures for many thousands of years. Over that time, we’ve formed powerful cultural connections to them.

Crocs play vital roles in our communities, economies and ecosystems.

They can be dangerous, but they’re also vulnerable, impacted by climate change and loss of habitat.

We must both respect and protect them.

(CROCS IN SEAGRASS VIDEO)

DESCRIPTION OF DISPLAY:

This room has dim lighting to enhance the impact of the video artwork projected on a large 4-metre-wide and 3-metre-high screen against the black walls of the room.

The video is called CROCS IN SEAGRASS, filmed by drone in the northern Kimberley, Western Australia, by Michael Haluwana, for Aeroture. The video plays on loop showing crocodiles, viewed from above, swimming through clear-water estuaries and over long, bright-green seagrass and reeds. The gentle rippling motion of the water, the undulating waves of the seagrass, and the rhythmic sway of the crocs’ body as they swim, is mesmerising and conveys a contemplative mood.

(SPIRIT REMOVED)

DESCRIPTION OF DISPLAY:

The final object displayed in the exhibition is an artwork titled SPIRIT REMOVED by Bernard Lee Singleton Junior. The sculpture sits just to the right of the large video screen, on a reflective black panel, on an otherwise matte-black stage-like plinth about 50 cm high.

This artwork consists of a rectangular crocodile trap, just over 2 metres long, almost a metre high and about half a metre wide, made from narrow sticks of bamboo lashed together to form a narrow cage. The front ‘gate’ of the trap is raised. Inside the trap, a large stylised wooden carving of a crocodile sits, with its snout towards the opening, its mouth closed. This crocodile is an ochre red-brown colour with orange, yellow, white and black designs along the top of his body, snout and tail. The intricate design uses a combination of tiny dots, chevrons, and small ‘weave-like’ marks.

A small black rope, tied into a noose, dangles at the rear of the cage, above the crocodile’s curved tail. Cinched in the noose is a Land Rights Bill rolled into a cylinder with an Australian $50 note wrapped around it.

The object label reads:

Created by Bernard Lee Singleton Junior., [an] Umpila, Djabuga/Yirrgay man, 2024.

This artwork warns of the dangers of perceiving the environment as separate to us, which makes it acceptable to dominate and exploit. Both humans and animals suffer when land is occupied.

Singleton says: “[Our] Spirit stands as an inner witness to the desecration of Country, its very essence taken by the insatiable hunger of greed and pursuit of money.” [end quote]

Scan the QR code to explore a 3D model.

DESCRIPTION OF DISPLAY:

Low stools are arranged around several earphones mounted on the plinth’s edge, to allow visitors to sit near the SPIRIT REMOVED artwork, and hear Singleton talk about this work in more detail.

(CLOSING STATEMENT)

Text printed on the wall reads:

THANK YOU.

Croc! Lost Giants to Living Legends is a collaboration between the Australian National Maritime Museum, Queensland Museum, and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

Thanks to all the museum teams and our partners, suppliers and collaborators.

This concludes the Audio Described tour.