What The Birds Told Me - SICK AF Collective

What the Birds Told Me is an intimate, multi-sensory exhibition that centres the wisdom and presence of local birds as messengers, teachers, and companions in times of change.

Emerging out of an ongoing relational project since 2024, What The Birds Told Me is a reflection on how listening to the more-than-human world can offer grounding, connection, and deep relational care. As part of Claire B. Bushby’s lived experience as a queer disabled artist living with chronic illness, Bushby has invited trusted artist friends to contribute works in conversation with the exhibition’s themes, embracing interdependence, care, and collective making as a methodology. The exhibition therefore unfolds with shared listening, attention, and mutual support.

Claire B. Bushby invited artists Donna Franklin, Jody Quackenbush, W. Sze Tsang, and members of the Sick AF Collective: Amanda Alderson, Nadine Brown, and Annamaria Weldon.
Accompanying the visual elements is a layered audio composition by W. Sze Tsang, created from birdsong and environmental recordings. The sound work encourages visitors to listen with their whole body, attuning to subtle relationships between sound, space, and memory.

On show:

Zig Zag Gallery, Kalamunda, Western Australia
14 February – 8 March, 2026

Sunday 8 March
Workshop > Echoes In Flight: Listen, Draw, Breathe, 11am – 12pm
Artist talk > What The Birds Told Me, 12.30 pm
Link to the workshop and talk here; workshop registrations essential: https://events.humanitix.com/echoes-in-flight-kalamunda

Claire B. Bushby
Witnesses

Claire B. Bushby, Witnesses (detail), 2026, digital print on art paper

With series of works, Witnesses: Not Separate but together; Witnesses: Home; Witnesses: Know The Score; Witnesses: Kin, Witnesses: Vulnerability Shared

Read >

Of The Soil, Not The Sky
Studio Threads // Bunuru (February – March)

Visit >
Website: clairebushby.com/
Instagram: @claire.b.bushby
Substack: @clairebilliebushby
Facebook: claire.bushby

Invited artists of the Sick AF Collective >

Amanda Alderson
First blush – Mapping morning rehab

My work grows from learning to listen differently. After my injury, birdsong and light became overwhelming. But over time I began to hear and see them as information, as the gentle signals that help me navigate my body and the day.

Living with complex sensory and neurological conditions, I rely on deep listening as a form of survival and care. The rhythms of the birds on the property mark changes in light, energy, and capacity. They guide me when to rest, shield, adjust, or move.

Walking in the biodiverse foothills landscape, I map the seasons, bird flight, my health and my footfall. Tiny moments of joy are found in the colourful feathers I find on my walks. These spots of vibrant colour inform my jewellery and creative process, rooted in care, observation and beauty.

Amanda Alderson and Harry Alderson, First blush – Mapping morning rehab, (2026), wood, paint, gemstones, 925 sterling silver

Listen >

Artist statement and biography

Process

Slow art exercise – feathered fragments

Nadeen Brown
Agoraphobia; Morning Bird

As the sun hit my back yard, my yoga mat called out for the year of 2023, slow yin yoga was my restorative practice. Magpies perched ontop of next doors Churches steeple in Port Adelaide. The birds called out their ominous slow laugh as I lay with slow movement whilst my indigenous non-verbal autistic daughter play near in the dirt sprinkling it amongst her little hands. Another bird call reverberated the area, was that my daughter or the bird? With a weak, fragile body and red dry eyes I looked to see who it was, such a delight. But i was still filled with a sense of grief and looking inward discussing my own mortality because what I have learnt through out this ordeal is this; life is certainly a balancing act. With grief in my heart and my body so weak I still managed to feel a sense of lightness and joy; a little morsel of peace.