Les enfants perdus (2016-17) combines multi-disciplinary practices and diverse media in one large-scale installation. A response to the movement of people and animals around the globe, Sleeman has focused on the migration patterns of the short-tailed shearwater (or mutton bird). Each spring 23 million of these birds migrate from the Arctic to southeast Australia to breed, passing points on the south coast of Kangaroo Island on their way. 

This work comments on the ever-decreasing numbers of migratory birds, in contrast to an ever- increasing human population. Les Enfants Perdus (The Lost Children) is the name given to the Pearson Isles by the French colonial explorer Nicolas Baudin, and for Sleeman is a meditation on the current state of the world with so many people searching for somewhere safe to be. As a migratory and prolific species, we humans are impacting upon the life cycles of other living creatures, whilst constantly circling the planet ourselves.