Deciding the Form
For this work I focused on the cherries as the marker for the season – the way they hang and how they look when they are ripe. As well as acknowledging the special place and time for our community, I also wanted to reference the 46 people who lived there when it was a mission. For this we chose to represent Tuylini / stringy bark canoes to represent the old people – there are lots of stringy bark in the area and the old people used to go through the waters that edge Putalina, across to Lunawuni / Bruny island. The Tuylini’s evoke for us an image of them travelling on their journeys, physical and spiritual.
Making the Work
Working with Armie we decided to make a chimes that would be long and flow like a waterfall and drape like the leaves of the native cherry tree. These were made by rolling out clay, embedding the plant material to make an imprint and cutting lengths with holes to chime. I made more than 700 pieces that went across 12 separate lengths around 3 metres long. I knew form previous work that this form would make a beautiful sound and be embedded with materials from country – both key aims of the project.
Some of the lengths were made to feature only the chime pieces made by community at Putalina. I got a lot of help from my family and Annette when threading the chimes on to the lengths of wire they would be hung on. We also made 46 tuylini forms that would represent each of the old people who lived at the mission.
The Activation
This work was launched with an event during the Ten Days on the Island festival in March 2025. The event took place on Aboriginal land Piyura Kitina.
The work was hung from a big gum tree by the river. The lengths of chimes hung from the branches and down to the ground. The canoes were placed radiating our from tree.
To begin the event I introduced everyone to the country we were meeting on and the story of the place. My cousin Kulai who helped with the artworks then preformed a smoking ceremony.
Following the smoking ceremony everyone was given a cup of tinputina / kunzea tea (a special plant ubiquitous around our ancestral country) and invited to sit on bean bags and chairs in front of the work.
I briefly spoke about work and meaning behind the work and then the work was activated by Warren Mason. This was a beautiful musical offering that worked with the place and the sounds of the work itself.
Following Warren’s performance everyone was invited to enjoy the whole payathanima / Wallaby that had been cooked over the fire by my niece Kitana who runs Palawa Kipli (Aboriginal Catering)
