Indigenous Exchange Art Residency, ANU Environment Studio
I’m honoured to have been one of a small group of participants for this years Bundian Way Artists Exchange Program, through the ANU Environment Studio. Due to COVID lockdowns this program was held online over an 8 week period, encouraging us to connect to Country within our local 5km radius. I created a series of poetry and photographic stills from the slopes of Mount Gillamatong, Braidwood.
Prologue
I’ve always had a deep connection to this beautiful landscape around me here in my hometown of Braidwood NSW. Since moving back here at the end of 2018 after more than 15 years away, I’m seeing it through a new lens.
I’m seeing the rich native bush, from the Shoalhaven River flats to the heritage listed Monga rainforest. I’m seeing the Deua stretching off south towards the wilds of Wadbilliga National Park. I’m hearing the stories of the Yuin Nation, who have walked these tracks for over 65,000 years. I am hearing hope in the voices of regenerative farmers who are learning to repair the damage caused by colonising legislations. I am learning from the scientists, First Nations, artists and farmers who are working together to create a new culture, a new way to be WITH the land - not ON the land - with passions fuelled even more by the devastating Black Summer bushfires.
I go out into this landscape each day and I listen. I open my heart, and I bare witness to the pain and the love and the hope that we all hold.
We are in an incredible time in Australia’s history. We are in the process of change. In my experience with personal change, it is not a comfortable time. There wouldn’t be change if we were still comfortable. One has to embrace being in the unknown, being in a new emotional landscape and balancing fear with courage.
One has to slow down enough to see the myriad of tiny pebbles that trickle down stream, tumbling inch by inch every day. This is how streams turn into rivers, how rivers turn into gorges. It is the work of small pebbles, moving small increments that can change the course of the landscape.
We, as a collective, are working to change the course of an emotional landscape that has ravaged this country for generations. And we, as a collective, bring the fresh waters that wash stale debris downstream.
In this time of isolation remember, you are connected.
You are a part of this landscape and its’ people.
Connection can be found in every living thing.
Go gently today.
This series titled “Seeking Ways to Navigate My Descent; Granite Country” was created during the Bundian Way Arts Exchange, which I attended online during the August 2021 Covid-19 lockdown.
The 8 week program was facilitated by the Environment Studio of the Australian National University (ANU) and connects indigenous stories with artists through field studies and field research methodology. This program focuses on guests from the Southern NSW coastline, and up into the Snowy Mountains of NSW.
Due to the lockdown the program was moved online, and I was encouraged to respond to Country within 5km’s of my house. For me, this meant Mount Gillamatong, on the outskirts of Braidwood NSW, where I walked daily.
Inspired by stories of the invasive “white male gaze” of the Snowy Hydro tunnel in the Snowy Mountains, which was carved out through the inside of a mountain that was sacred to local indigenous groups, I began to consider where Mount Gillamatong began and ended, what lay inside her and who has the right to take that from her? The feminine landscape of this “Women’s Country” became intrinsically connected with my own body, and the violation of violence against women and against the environment throughout white Australia’s history.
Paired with my own photography; the poem reads:
Slowly I pull moisture into my dusty shadows,
Seeking ways to navigate my descent
With silent breathing I go inside the rock
And from the inside looking out, I know
This is the purpose.
I see the beauty of a man in his vulnerability
I see the beauty of a woman in her strength
Your shame is not my shame
Your fear is not my fear.
I am not empty,
you cannot fill me.