Artist statements
Nici Cumpston
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This series of photographs was created on a group day trip through Old Mutawintji Gorge in late July 2022. Mutawintji is a place of great cultural significance to all Barkandji/Barkindji peoples and many neighbouring groups. For millennia we have gathered here, at this permanent place of water, for cultural activities such as marriages, initiations, ceremony, and trade.
We followed the creek bed, negotiating sandy patches and clambering up and down rocky outcrops. Making our way into the gorge I was empowered by a sense of collective pride. We were in awe of the beauty and power of our Country and could sense the presence of our Ancestors through the ancient rock art all around us. Their energy guided and protected us.
I walked slowly along the creek bed and let the others forge ahead. This time alone with my camera enabled me to watch the light and capture the beauty of this ancient land. I could hear everyone high in the under crofts.
Their chatter and laughter was a joyous sound ringing through the gorge.
For me, this body of work is alive with this memory, it makes me happy.
These black and white photographs are printed on watercolour paper and hand coloured. I shape the colour that fills my prints through revisiting memories of this time and place. It is a meditative process and offers an opportunity to reflect on time spent learning from each other and our precious Country. When I look at this work, I think of us all mirrimpilyi, happy and contented
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These hand coloured photographs were taken in a very special cultural place for our people, called Mutawintji, where we have always gathered for celebrations and ceremony. When I look at this work, I remember our time together on Country and feel happy. I think of us all mirrimpilyi, happy and contented.
Zena Cumpston
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For several years I have researched and written about the plant knowledge and foodways of our people. Each of the artworks I have made explore the interrelationships of people, plants and animals on our Barkandji Country.
I see my developing art practice as an exciting new way to explore my research, to map my learning, to share far and wide.
I have included kopi, which is gypsum from our Country that is processed to make a white pigment utilised in traditional mourning practices but also, importantly, for joyous occasions such as painting our bodies for ceremony and celebration. Through each of these works I celebrate our knowledge, but I also mourn how rarely our knowledge as First Peoples is respected and empowered.
Today, the bush foods industry in Australia generates around $80 million in revenue, and by 2025 this is estimated to double. Sadly, less than 2% of the benefit of this industry goes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
To draw attention to what I see are very strong parallels between the Aboriginal art industry and the bush foods industry, I have incorporated text to reference the work of Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang activist/artist Richard Bell. Specifically Bell’s Theorem; Aboriginal art it’s a white thing! that critiques disparities in benefit.
Circles signpost a portal into Aboriginal knowledge of Country and signify return — return to our traditional foodways, our plant knowledge, our holistic land management practices. Circles speak to the foundational importance in our culture of true reciprocity, never taking without giving back.
In all of my work I call for the empowerment of our people, of our deep knowledge and skillful management of Country, for the benefit of all.
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I mourn that since the invasion of our lands we do not often get to eat our traditional foods, developed over many thousands of years to keep our people strong and healthy. I celebrate the many ways our people have kept our plant knowledge and knowledge of Country strong, despite the many ongoing challenges we face as colonised peoples.
David Doyle
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Within this body of work I share with you our deep knowledge of the abundance of our Country and many aspects of our ancient foodways.
kamuru or river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), was chosen as Australia’s favourite tree in 2022, but has been a favourite of the Barkindji for many more years. Standing stoic, kamuru watches over our mother Baaka, protecting and supporting her as she meanders through Barkindji Country. But to us Barkindji, kamuru is more than a protector, more than a prone sentinel and more than a tree. I have tried to capture the importance of kamuru within this display of red gum artefacts while showing its beauty and significance to us Barkindji.
For millennia kamuru has watched over generations of Barkindji and seen the ways of the old people, witnessed the white man come, witnessed the devastation of our mother Baaka. They have sheltered many of our people under their branches. They offer warmth when used to fuel our fire. They have kept us cool on the days when it is too hot to be out in the sun. They give us medicine when we are unwell and food when we are hungry.
Providing a means to carry food and water, bowls to prepare medicine, canoes to keep us dry and help us to collect food and an umbrella on drizzly days. They have helped birth thousands of Barkindji in their hollowed-out trunks or under their branches. Standing proud over the bodies of our old people who have passed on to the dreamtime.
For Barkindji, kamuru means shelter, it means medicine and food, it means hot and cold, wet and dry, birth and death.
kamuru is more than a tree, kamuru is Barkindji.
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I have used my skills as a carver, as well as casting many objects in bronze. I have made these works to help you to understand the beauty and importance of kamuru (river red gum) to us as Barkindji people.
Kent Morris
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karta-kartaka (pink cockatoo) was recently added to the national threatened species list. Ongoing threats to their existence include the loss of existing and future hollow-bearing trees for nesting due to land clearing, and a lack of feeding areas and regeneration as a result of heavy grazing by invasive species on Country.
A pink cockatoo in a hollow tree is part of the two Ngatyi (Rainbow Serpents) creation story as told by senior storyteller, Alf Barlow (c. 1888–1961). This story recounts how our Country was formed by two rainbow serpents travelling, which is deeply significant to Barkindji people and our culture.
As Major Thomas Mitchell (1792–1855) was involved in atrocities towards Barkindji people and other First Nations people, particularly the 1836 massacre at Mount Dispersion (now called the Mount Dispersion Massacre Site Aboriginal Place), we refrain from using the more common name associated with this bird.
This series is constructed from photographic images taken at Mutawintji that have been transformed from the single-point perspective of a camera’s eye to an immersive, kaleidoscopic network of patterns inspired by First Nations cultural knowledge systems.
The repeating patterns speak of infinity through a First Nations’ lens that views animals, humans, land, plants, sea and sky as interconnected and interdependent throughout time. They represent moments of transformation, of deep time cultural forms reinforcing ancestry, sovereignty and the undeniable wisdom and knowledge of millennia.
Capturing moments of clarity in the warm clear air on Barkindji Country provides a space to think and reflect, a First Nations experiential mindset of sitting respectfully, listening to and seeing Country together and individually. Being part of a silent Ancestral system of sustainability and strength.
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karta-kartaka (pink cockatoo) is part of the two Rainbow Serpents creation story of our Barkindji Country. I use repeating patterns to share a First Nations way of seeing the world — animals, humans, land, plants, sea and sky are connected to each other and depend on each other to be sustainable, healthy and strong.
Adrianne Semmens
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My work embodies stories of connection — to Country, to water, to kin.
I have been interested in the use of shadow and reflection, as a marker of time passed, of those before us, and of Country holding our stories and knowledge.
kuntyiri honours and reflects upon returning visits to Wilyakali and Barkandji/Barkindji Country. From childhood memories with family, to recent journeys together as a collective. My gestures speak softly, filmed against the incredible visions of Country.
Dance has always been a way of sharing our knowledge and understanding, a cultural practice entwined with story and song. This work continues that practice, marking our coming together and sharing through dance.
The choreography is an archive of memories, stories and sentiment — carrying immense love and also longing. I recall watching my shadows dance across the corrugated iron landscapes of Broken Hill, and feel the weight and smooth touch of a grindstone held.
The holding close of these moments, and the people I shared them with, is echoed in the string sculptures.
Both the screendance and sculptural works continue my interest in the use of string, to map journey and lineage. The pooling string gestures to our ever present lifeblood — water.
Dyed on Kaurna Country, the string continues the connection between my home, living on Kaurna Country and my Ancestral Barkandji Country.
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Through dance I share my memories and connection to place and people. I trace my journeys across Country. I use string to explore and represent our lifeblood — water.
Raymond Zada
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This work represents a direct line of Ancestors. Put simply, it is your parents and their parents and their parents and their parents . . . for ten generations.
Each of the 2,046 figures has been hand-drawn to pay homage to every Ancestor who contributed to my DNA over the past ten generations.
It doesn’t matter if you have ten siblings and each of your parents had ten siblings, or if you’re an only child and each of your parents was an only child. For all of us, the same number of Ancestors contributed to our DNA.
We are all connected to places and to others and we each belong to something bigger than our immediate family and our current home. We have a responsibility to respect others and to respect the Country we live on.
This work embeds multiple aspects of our several weeks on Country throughout 2022: the flowing Baaka, being on Country with family and documenting our ancestry, and the engravings and art we saw at Mutawintji.
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We are all connected to places and to others. We each belong to something bigger than our immediate family and our current home. We have a responsibility to respect others and to respect the Country we live on.