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Cass Lynch

@cass_lynch

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🔕 Intermittently online
👣 Koreng Wudjari Yok
🎓 PhD in Indigenous Climate Stories
📚 Noongar language researcher
📝 I write stories and poems👇🏼

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So pleased that my poem ‘Spiders Build Your Webs at Night’ was included in the children’s poetry collection ‘If I Could Eat The Stars and Other Poems’ published by @fremantlepress in May 2026 🕸️🌙🕸️

It was inspired by the orb weavers in my front garden who build all along the eaves in front of my study window. Unfortunately they are a soft and tasty snack for a bird or wasp so they build their elaborate webs at night while their predators are asleep. They emerge in October every year and I love watching them but then they drop in numbers and disappear mostly by January. They hide during the daylight hours but wasps especially can smell spider pheromones so they don’t have much luck avoiding them. Lucky they hide their eggs and I get a new crop of spiderling garden orb weavers to admire every Spring ❤️‍🩹

‘If I Could Eat the Stars’ is edited by Sally Murphy and Rebecca M. Newman of @alphabetsoupbooks, with wonderful illustrations by local legend and 2026 @cbcaustralia Children’s Book Week poster designer Briony Stewart ✨🤸🏻‍♀️✨

@fremantlepress @rebeccanewmanbooks @sallymurphyauthor @briony_stewart #spiderpoem #childrenspoetry by @cass_lynch

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2 months ago

I have a new essay available to read as part of the launch of Volume 2 of @blue.artjournal 🌀

‘Time Shallows’ shares some of my musings on the deep rationality of Noongar Time in comparison to the shallow anxiety of Settler Time.

The issue has been guest edited by Zali Morgan and Timmah Ball, and I’m in great company with fellow contributors including Nathan Sentance, Amanda Bell, Mykaela Saunders and Jazz Money.

Thanks for having me Blue Art Journal! You can read the whole issue online, the link is in my bio 🩵

#deeptime #Indigenoustime #settlercolonialisim taken in Noongar Boodjar by @cass_lynch

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3 months ago

I scored a drone show.

It was one of the three nights in Albany this year to which hundreds rolled up on a beach to watch the sky erupt in light, sound and voice. “Each drone light show told a distinct Menang story, blending culture, history and landscape through choreographed formations of light.”

One of those storytellers was @cass_lynch .

I felt so relieved that it was made apparent real quick that neither of us were interested in 15min of monotonous monochromatic meditation music.

Cass referenced Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner (I.e. “How to Win Over Rachel’s Heart in Two Titles”) The conversation wrapped up with “Why not make it fucken epic?” Yes, Cass, why not indeed.

This was such an interesting scoring challenge. I came in before the drones were animated. So the only thing to grab onto was narration. Anyone who’s done something similar knows this is equal parts liberating and paralysing.

(Normally you have image, or an action to take a cue from, some kind of dramaturgy to respond to)

In catching myself trying to force a dramatic arc, I realised I was starting in the wrong place.

Cass wasn’t telling a story in the way I’d classically think about one. She was moving through deep time. Country. Language. Ancient connections. The spider. The moon. All interwoven, re-referencing and dream-logic-ing one other. Not a story but a worldview. “That’s what I’m scoring”, I thought. I was capturing scale, wonder, awe… and peppering it with the themes of explicit characters - the trapdoor spider, the black cockatoo, the Moon. (Pronouns are “he/him”)

The other very helpful mind hack was to imagine gifting my animator friends with the musical cues that they would want to latch onto. Like leaving tons of little musical breadcrumbs for the drone animators to pick up and snack on.

Can you imagine..? To start with a single voice and long silences .. and watch it morph and expand into a fully scored drone light show that people could take their kids to see? Thrilling. ❤️ by @cass_lynch

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4 months ago

No better sound ❤️❤️❤️

#PerthWA #Ngoolyak #NoongarCountry #carnabysblackcockatoo taken in Noongar Boodjar by @cass_lynch

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5 months ago

I’m giving a talk about totems, spider rescues and drone light shows this coming Thursday at @udlastudio in Walyalup/Fremantle. See the link in bio to RSVP ✨

From @udlastudio

Deep time connections: Language, Lore and the Trapdoor Spider

How can language, story and care for endemic species reconnect us to place?
In Deep Time Connections: Language, Lore and the Trapdoor Spider, Dr Cass Lynch will reflect on collaboration, habitat protection and the role of language in caring for landscapes. Cass will also share the story of rescuing 40 trapdoor spiders from construction in the Porongurup Range National Park. Sam Shepherd will then prompt some questions.

To complement the conversation, the walls of UDLA’s Walyalup studio will showcase drawings of insects and arachnids endemic to Western Australia. Submit a drawing by 24 March for your chance to win a copy of Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now, featuring a story by Cass Lynch. More information here.

About the event:

Thursday 26 March, 2025 UDLA’s Walyalup Studio
(Level 2 Atwell Building, 3 Cantonment Street, Fremantle, WA, 6160)

Doors open 5.30pm
Lecture begins 6pm
Pizza, drinks and chats until 8.30pm

Free event. RSVP essential. Let us know if you’re joining by 20 March taken in UDLA by @cass_lynch

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7 months ago

A beautiful video of my giant walbungkara/trapdoor spider in the sky down in Albany which featured in the second of three drone light shows happening in Albany this weekend. I wrote the Porongurup show with cultural guidance from Menang elders Vern Gillies and Larry Blight, with input and voices from my own Wirlomin elders. The show flew last night and was a tale of deep time, deep memory, trapdoor spiders, and the moon.

This video was captured by my good friend and fellow spider protector Loxley Fedec. Loxley was the local conservation legend who organised the volunteers to help us rescue the trapdoor spider colony in the Porongurups in 2024 💜💜💜

Second image I’ve pinched from the Albany Facebook page, captured by Rob Douglas. The third image is the beautiful kinship image created by art director @ilonamcguire_ which was photographed by Howie Gaskin (@the.museum.of.us ) 💫

For those in Albany, the final @first__lights show is tonight, and this one is written by Kim Scott and the wonderful Wirlomin elders and shares the story of Mamang/The Whale 🩵🐋🩵

@first__lights @stellar___lights @fremantlebiennale @thecityofalbanywa taken in Albany, Western Australia by @cass_lynch

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7 months ago

Thanks for the write up on the drone light shows @albanyadvertiser! 💟

@first__lights @fremantlebiennale @thecityofalbanywa taken in Albany, Western Australia by @cass_lynch

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7 months ago

Two years in the making, the First Lights Kinjarling drone shows are lifting off tonight at ANZAC Peace Park in Albany 💫

The shows share three stories from Menang Boodjar in collaboration with Menang Elders. I have written and narrated the Saturday night show ‘Porongurup’, which features a Dreaming story from Menang Elders Vern Gillies and Larry Blight, and a whole lot of deep time and trapdoor spiders from me. Professor and Wirlomin Elder Kim Scott has written and narrated the Friday night and Sunday night shows: Mamang Maambakoort based in King George Sound and ‘Kawaar’ based at the Stirling Ranges.

The elders were very supportive of our trapdoor spider rescue in 2024, and were very happy to share the sky with my little walbungkara/trapdoor mates. For those in Albany look out for a giant glowing spider in the sky!

For those not on the south coast the shows will be filmed and available at a later date to watch.

Thanks so much to the @first__lights team especially creative producer and djook @ilonamcguire_ and thanks to the sound and music team at @envelope.audio including musician Rachel Claudio.

There is some info here in the slides along with some photos from the rescue. First Lights Kinjarling is the first of many events being run in Albany this year to commemorate the bicentennial (1826-2026).

#dronelightshow #albanywa #amazingalbany taken in Albany, Western Australia by @cass_lynch

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7 months ago

Just sharing what books I bought the nieces and nephews for Christmas before I wrap them up. I had a decent browse in @rabblebooks in Maylands and got some winners. I love picture books! I worked in bookstores for ten years and was a buyer for the children’s section and I do miss it, so I’m often haunting my mates’ bookstores and checking out their kids new releases 💟

Books here by @jamesfoleybooks, @fremantlepress, @scholastic_au, @alinatysoe, @harpercollinsuk, @mikeyplease, @penguinrandomhouse, @freyahartas, @gabdaw38, @alexmaglalangbarrow and @simonandschuster 📚

#picturebooks #picturebookreview taken in Noongar Boodjar by @cass_lynch

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10 months ago

I’m really delighted to be named in the 2025 Rising Stars list for Australian Academy of Humanities, its recognising a couple of things from this year, one being the new Wirlomin Noongar picture books that were due for release last month. We got our author copies but the bookshop orders have been delayed at the printers. They’re due to arrive in late January so I’ll be able to share more about them then.

Above are some screenshots from the announcement, and well done to the five researchers who were also recognised! ✨

#AustralianAcademyoftheHumanities #AAH #ECR #earlycareerresearcher by @cass_lynch

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10 months ago

Hear me yarning about time, connection to Country, spiders, and the power of our more-than-human kin in the final of episode of Hark, season five of @thresholdpodcast 🌐 You can listen on the Threshold website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Fellow WA mob Bianca McNeair of Malgana Country (Shark Bay) and Clinton Walker of Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi Country feature in this episode too, along with two dolphin researchers, a Kenyan guide and a Métis poet. There’s a great story from the guide Tilas Lekango about surviving a night on his own in the bush when he was 9 when looking for his village who move with their livestock herds.

I’ve been really enjoying this season of Threshold, it’s all about listening to the non-human world, and features insights about animals, plants and weather from researchers, writers, creatives, and cultural practitioners.

Thanks to host Amy Martin for having me! 👋

#thresholdpodcast #naturepodcast taken in Noongar Boodjar by @cass_lynch

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10 months ago

So proud to be awarded Curtin University’s Indigenous Researcher of the Year last month at the 2025 Research Impact and Excellence Awards ✨ I was recognised for my research outputs and engagement this year, in particular for the trapdoor spider rescue article in Australian Geographic which went out to 500,000 subscribers 🕷️

It’s impossible to photograph these glass awards so here’s a foggy one and a video of my little wind-up desk Ohmu from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind I picked up in Japan earlier this year 😁🪲🪸🦊

The award is currently on my desk at home next to some peacock spider art by Dave’s mum @debwatt_art 🩵 taken in Curtin University by @cass_lynch

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10 months ago