The story of the swirl

As we navigate ongoing shifts in our economic landscape, The Story of the Swirl by Abbey Murdoch draws on lived experience to explore the realities of housing insecurity and low income experiences through the perspective of a child. The work considers how experiences of instability are understood and reimagined through memory, imagination, and storytelling.

This site-responsive installation transforms the City of Adelaide's ART POD into a reconstructed domestic space, echoing a childhood family room. Through projection, sound, and embedded narrative elements, the work extends beyond the screen, with fragments of the story carried throughout ART POD. The moving image sits within this space, centring a child's experience while reflecting how everyday surroundings shape perception and understanding.

As audiences observe the installation, the narrative unfolds in layered and shifting ways, inviting an intimate encounter with home, resilience, and the often-unseen realities of children experiencing poverty in South Australia.