Mating Dance, Bondi Pavilion Gallery, 2025.

Mating Dance is an installation featuring life-sized brolgas in courtship formations, paying homage to Australia’s principal dancing bird. These brolgas, crafted from cotton paper and brass, are suspended in a moment between call and response. Accompanied by Bree van Reyk’s sound piece, inspired by the brolga’s bold trumpeting, Mating Dance rejoices in the shared spirit of humans and animals — a flirtation with life.

Anna-Wili Highfield is an Australian artist living and working on Gadigal Land. Her sculptures explore the tension between materiality and the vitality of her animal subjects. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous collections in Australia and overseas.

Anna-Wili Highfield acknowledges the Gadigal, Wiradjuri, Birpai, and Dunghutti people as the traditional custodians of the lands and waters on which these artworks have been made and exhibited. She also acknowledges that the brolgas, in their varied habitats across this continent, have a timeless connection to the custodians of these lands.