• Judith Nangala Crispin. Image: Tim Levy
    Judith Nangala Crispin. Image: Tim Levy
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The Dingo’s Noctuary by Judith Nangala Crispin

By Tim Levy | 12 November 2025

Renowned photographer Judith Nangala Crispin’s The Dingo’s Noctuary stands as a vital interpretation of Australian identity, where personal and national histories collide.

Conceived across an epic thirty-seven desert journeys by motorbike (with her trusty dingo dog named Moon), the book is a hybrid work in the truest sense, giving equal weight to its haunting photographic images and its lyrical, thought-provoking texts.

Ascending Being 26—She remembered running, baby in pouch, the burrow nearly visible, birds lifting from the watertank at the first rifle’s crack– so cold in the long grass, day drops night, and the joey stills. In the winter sky over Braidwood, Enid finds her baby again, as a spark in starfields. Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram and drawing. Shot wombat mother and her frozen joey. Exposed 49 hours, with salt, sand, ochres, gold chloride, white-out and clay, on fibre paper in a geodesic dome. Image: Judith Nangala Crispin
Ascending Being 26—She remembered running, baby in pouch, the burrow nearly visible, birds lifting from the watertank at the first rifle’s crack– so cold in the long grass, day drops night, and the joey stills. In the winter sky over Braidwood, Enid finds her baby again, as a spark in starfields. Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram and drawing. Shot wombat mother and her frozen joey. Exposed 49 hours, with salt, sand, ochres, gold chloride, white-out and clay, on fibre paper in a geodesic dome. Image: Judith Nangala Crispin

The book has already received major awards such as the Sunshine Coast Art Prize. That the work was also shortlisted for the esteemed Arles Luma Recontres Dummy Book Prize speaks to its innovative form, while its inclusion in the 2024 Lunar Codex time-capsule heralds its status as a quintessential Australian cultural document of our time.

Her photography process is nothing short of incredible, fused with a sense of magic. These 'portraits' are not paintings but photograms, created by placing the bodies of baby dingoes, birds, and other native fauna on an emulsion plate, often adorned with flowers or set against the star map of their passing.

Ascending Being 2—Marvin meets his friend Judith for the last time, over a desert that doesn’t exist, wearing the form of a rabbit. Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram. Two dog-killed baby rabbits, photochemistry, household chemicals (turmeric, vegemite, salt and coffee) on fibre paper. Exposed 32 hours in a geodesic dome. Image: Judith Nangala Crispin
Ascending Being 2—Marvin meets his friend Judith for the last time, over a desert that doesn’t exist, wearing the form of a rabbit. Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram. Two dog-killed baby rabbits, photochemistry, household chemicals (turmeric, vegemite, salt and coffee) on fibre paper. Exposed 32 hours in a geodesic dome. Image: Judith Nangala Crispin

The resulting images – which Crispin terms 'light-pictures' – are at once a forensic record and a sacred tribute. Through the images, Crispin also redefines highway casualties.

She sees them not as mere accidents, but as 'collateral damage' in technology's relentless war on the natural world. Her art is a direct intervention – an act of 'spiritual rescue and easing' for these fallen spirits.

Ascending Being 10—Her wing caught on a barbed wire fence, night becoming day and the bone pierced. Ruth slips off her owl body, exploding into the sky over Lake Burley Griffin, to become a sun. Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-Verre, Chemigram and drawing. Trapped deceased Eastern Barn Owl, seeds, feather-top grass, turmeric, coffee, liquid paper, sulphuric acid and silver chlorides, exposed 40 hours with electric current, in a geodesic dome. Image: Judith Nangala Crispin
Ascending Being 10—Her wing caught on a barbed wire fence, night becoming day and the bone pierced. Ruth slips off her owl body, exploding into the sky over Lake Burley Griffin, to become a sun. Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-Verre, Chemigram and drawing. Trapped deceased Eastern Barn Owl, seeds, feather- top grass, turmeric, coffee, liquid paper, sulphuric acid and silver chlorides, exposed 40 hours with electric current, in a geodesic dome. Image: Judith Nangala Crispin

The book itself is a testament to resilience. It was largely drafted on a 1966 Olympia typewriter – a machine that became a necessity after a motorcycle accident left its author unable to bear the light of a screen.

In summary, Crispin’s work is a powerful, melancholic cartography of loss, mapping the places where human carelessness leaves its most indelible scars on nature and our environment.

The hardcover book is available now and is published by Puncher & Wattmann. Price is $130.00.

You can also view Judith's fascinating motorcycle adventure photo diary here.

All author profits from the book are going to support training programs in Lajamanu by The Purple House, a dialysis organisation in the NT, and the expansion of their remote dialysis unit.