Voices for Burnt Places is a community-based spoken chorus and listening project developed in response to bushfire loss and recovery. It is a listening and lament practice shaped in response to fire-affected landscapes and communities.

The work sits alongside The Hecuba Project and Spoken Stories as part of Brenda Joy Addie’s wider practice, but it is not a performance, festival event, or staged production.

It is offered quietly, in place, through voice, listening, and presence.

Voices for Burnt Places brings people together to speak, hear, and hold grief without spectacle — through shared attention, simple spoken chorus, and collective witnessing. It honours land, loss, resilience, and renewal, offering a space where communities can gather to listen and be heard.

Lament for Burnt Places

You have sheltered us.

You have nurtured and nourished us.

You have protected us

through pestilence and plague.

And now, it is our turn

to honour you and protect you

through your vulnerability

And your regrowth.

May we never lose sight

of your majesty

and your sovereignty.

Our message to you is this:

Love and respect.

To all the Burnt Places,

we send our tidings of lament.

For all the losses:

the houses, the livestock,

the wildlife, the fruit, the businesses,

the trees, the gardens,

the electricity, the internet,

the water,

and the heartache.

We hear you.

We feel you.

Our hearts are heavy for you.

Together, we plant new seeds

and tend all

Burnt Places as our own,

knowing that new growth is

victory over torment.

We salute you.

And we care.

Brenda Joy Addie, January 2026.

Voices for Burnt Places is currently being developed through small community gatherings, spoken choruses, and public offerings across the Mount Alexander Shire and surrounding regions.

Enquiries and expressions of interest are welcome.

Brenda Addie
Facilitator
brendaaddie@gmail.com