A Weight to Entice Buoyancy

Paradise Works x Manchester International Festival 2025

Manchester International Festival 2025 x FESTIVAL SQUARE x Paradise Works

Paradise Works
Exhibition + Sound Installation July 4th - August 3rd

Friday 4 July 2.00 - 3.00pm  – Festival Square, MIF25

Saturday 12 July 2.00– 4.15pm – New Bailey Street, Salford (following by a drinks reception and artist talk at Paradise Works at 5pm) 

Sunday 13th 2.00– 4.15pm – New Bailey Street, Salford

Thursday 17 July, 2.00 - 3.00pm – Festival Square, MIF25

A Weight to Entice Buoyancy is a sonic and material installation by Amber Cronin (Adelaide, Australia) that invites audiences into a shared space of attention, reflection, and resonance. Rooted in ecological research and ancestral knowledge, the project draws on fieldwork with scientists, researchers and activists, traditional oral forms- Latvian dainas, and contemporary choral composition to explore how we stay connected—emotionally, ecologically, and socially—in times of complexity and transformation.

Presented as both an exhibition and a series of public performances across Manchester, the work brings together textile sculpture and layered choral sound. Each element is shaped by acts of care and embodied knowledge.

At the heart of the exhibition is Against the Rush of the Arrow, a new body of textile-based sculptural works. These wall-based forms evoke tools, fragments, and offerings for surviving endings. Through materials and gestures—folding, knotting, binding—Cronin draws on ancestral practices of care, persistence, and repair. The works speak to the inevitability of collapse while quietly insisting on the power of ceremony, interdependence, and collective resilience.

Alongside the sculptural works is a new choral composition A Weight to Entice Buoyancy, developed with composer Emma Borgas (Adelaide Chamber Singers) and sound designer and folk musician, Kaurna Cronin, and performed by members of Manchester’s Kantos Choir during Manchester International Festival. Drawing on traditional Latvian dainas and prayers from climate scientists, the performance holds space for grief and hope—moving between breath, silence, and harmonic layering.


Essay by Andrew Purvis


Our tidal breath is an autonomic function; the steady inhalation and exhalation occurring without conscious thought. I ask that you concentrate on it now, observe the flood and ebb of oxygen entering and leaving your body. A lungful is a scant measure: only about six liters of air. For as long as it takes you to read this short piece of writing, I want you to be as attentive to your breathing as a singer, or a deep-sea diver; aware of the preciousness of each breath and of the fragility of the organism that relies on such insubstantial sustenance.  

As an artist, Amber Cronin has immersed herself in the world of ecological research; her practice is performed alongside and in response to the work of organisations such as the Nature Conservation SA, South Australian Seed Conservation Centre,  SA Forestry, and Trees for Life. In speaking with Amber about the processes of data collection that she has observed amongst these field researchers, it strikes me that their deep, diligent vigilance has an almost mystical quality: volunteers listen to birdsong in order to track declines in species diversity in much the same way as Ancient Greek ornithomancers read omens from the flight and cries of birds. In an era of unprecedented environmental precarity, this field of investigation is the scientific equivalent of theological eschatology: a study of last things.  

Through her work, Amber is keenly attuned to the sense of loss and fatigue that environmental researchers feel when confronted with their own findings. She is also aware that this grief is a compass; the title of her new work, A Weight to Entice Buoyancy, alludes to the ballast which provides stability to ocean-going vessels. The title, she says, acknowledges ‘the need to be with the heaviness and complexities of the current moment [...] in order to move forward into uncertain futures.’ 

This work recognises and seeks to ameliorate a lack: as a society, we are yet to formulate the ceremonial framework through which we may communally acknowledge and process environmental grief. Aptly multi-disciplinary, A Weight to Entice Buoyancy provides us with the various components of a rite, including ritual garments and textile talismans, embroidered with community sourced prayers of hope and resilience.  

At its center is a new choral piece, composed by the artist in collaboration with musicians Kaurna Cronin and Emma Borgas. The form and language of the lyrics are directly inspired by Latvian dainas, traditional folk songs that weave together themes of pre-Christian mythology, daily life, resilience, and nature. In drawing from her own Latvian heritage, Amber finds correspondence in the past’s anxious awareness of humanity’s vulnerability to the vagaries of the seasons. While ours might be an era of unrivalled climate instability, we are not unique in our apprehension of these forces. Emerging from the Western world’s long era of climate complacency, there is perhaps some comfort to be found in reconnecting with the concerns of our ancestors; in knowing that we have never been alone. 

This sense of continuity in the face of rupture and the assurance of community is what gives ceremonial traditions their placatory power. By singing together, harmonising, we find connection; through a joined exhalation, it is hoped that we might find respite from feelings of vulnerability and isolation. So, as you observe the movement of air into and out of your body, think on the fragility of all things, experience a sense of passing, and take comfort in knowing that you do not breathe alone. 


A Weight to Entice Buoyancy would not exist without the insight and generosity of:

Tom Borgas – who has been dedicated to the realisation of this work since its inception.

Emma Borgas – composer, vocalist and collaborator
Kaurna Cronin – sound designer, composer and collaborator
Andrew Purvis – writer
Jutho / Julie Thornberg-Thorsøe - costumes
Thomas McCammon – photographer / visual identity

Ramsay Taplin –  photographer / documentation

Jessica Bennett – UK curator, Paradise Works

Robin Broadly – technician and install, Paradise Works


Researchers and community members who contributed texts, prayers, voice, and conversation.


These project was made possible thanks to support from:

  • James Allen

  • Anton Andreacchio

  • Hannah and Andrew Andreyev

  • Thomas Borgas

  • Lilian Choo

  • Lesley Forwood

  • Ben and Jamie Gardner

  • Jane Howard

  • Elizabeth Nowell

  • Libby Raupach

  • Leigh Robb & Andrew Purvis

  • Mary Lou Simpson

  • Lisa Tarca

  • Triton Tunis-Mitchell

  • Henry Wolff

  • Nunn Dimos Foundation

  • Human Kind Studios

  • Creative Australia and the Australian Cultural Fund

  • Paradise Works

  • British Council

  • Manchester International Festival