Melody Owen // Pearl Hyacinth exhibition with virtual world piano performance by Dana Reason
Melody Owen (USA) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and curator from Portland, Oregon, who works with installation, video, photography, digital processes and hand cut collage. Melody explores technology, ecology and the embodied perception and communication of reality via different types of living forms. She’s specifically interested in the voices and languages of bird, insect and animal species as well as the interconnected and entangled nature of us — including mycelium, moss and plant life. Melody mixes conceptual “poetry” with ideas around ecology and technology. Most recently, she has been exploring these issues through 3D virtual worlds. Her digital representative, Pearl Hyacinth is a nomadic multiverse avatar who has been curating and creating work within existing social, creative virtual 3D worlds for the past ten years. Some of her recent work took place within the context and with the support of the University of New South Wales during her practice-based research for an unfinished PhD.
In this exhibition, Melody Owen’s Portrait Gallery : Fabulous Monsters series of hand cut collages are on display. These images made from picture books of colonial Australians and Australian seashells have accompanying augmented reality (AR) animations when viewed via a digital device — the collages come alive in the digital space.
The Hyacinth Report, a ten-year retrospective of Pearl Hyacinth’s adventures building, documenting, exploring and adding animal voices to virtual worlds. This includes a machinima film by Melody Owen, recorded in Second Life in 2020 with Dana Reason playing piano in-world during the time of the wildfires in Oregon. Dana’s avatar sits at the virtual piano playing beautifully haunting melodies, surrounded by forest creatures whilst the fires burn around her.
Portrait Gallery : Fabulous Monsters collaged portraits & curation by Melody Owen.
Augmented reality animations by: Anna Malina, Carla Knopp, Chris Coleman, ilan katin, Isa Kost, James Alec Hardy, Michelle Brown, Olof Pettersson, Sabato, SubNet, Théo Uchôa and Zak Margolis.
Exhibition runs 15-29 August 2026. Gallery open sat+sun 12-3pm. A closing event party with Pearl Hyacinth shall take place in-world