Category: Work in Progress

Why here and now:

It was important to me to have one of the rayakana milaythina residencies take place of the mutton bird season. Many of the residencies were planned to coincide with seasonal indicators and harvests that are currently dormant or being revived in our community. But the practice of mutton birding is the biggest and most widely practiced seasonal cultural harvest in our community and is one that has remained uninterrupted by colonisation and could not be overlooked by this project.

 During the mutton birding season, families from across Lutruwita head to islands in Tayartija / the Bass Strait and spend a month harvesting and processing yula /mutton-birds to be eaten and sold throughout the year.

There is a strong link between the practice of birding, cultural continuity and Tasmanian Aboriginal resistance and advocacy. At times in our community’s history this practice has formed a key economic basis for many families living on the islands. In the 1800s, Lucy Beeton was famously the head of a huge enterprise selling mutton birds, eggs, oil and feathers in Launceston -using that income to pay for a teacher to come from Melbourne to teach the Aboriginal kids on flinders Island when the colonial government refused to do so.

I always think about the letters written from the families on Cape Barren Island to the newspapers, when so much land in Tayaritja was being opened up for white cattle farming, they were asking for just one island to be reserved for the practice of mutton birding.

Today titima/trefoil island, Big Dog Island, Babel Island, Luntalanana/Clark Island, Chapel Island, Badger Island, Steep head Island and Truwana /Cape Barren Island are all returned Aboriginal Lands that our community either live on or manage.

Visiting Tayaritja during mutton birding season is always fun because there’s so much community around.

This residency took place from the 8^th-12^th of April

I travelled with Takani (the filmmaker) from Hobart up to Launceston on the 8^th and we took a flight from Launceston to Flinders Island with my niece Kitana from Palawa Kipli Aboriginal catering and a young girl who Kitana was taking birding for the first time. Kitana is an experienced birder having done her first full season with her grandfather at the age of seven.

We spent the night in Whitemark making plans with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s Pakana rangers to meet in the morning and travel over to Big Dog Island – where the majority of the mutton birding sheds are (there are others on Babel and Trefoil Island).

During the season the Rangers do almost daily trips over and back from Flinders to Big Dog, often with a barge taking food, supplies, even vehicles over. We went over to Big Dog in the dingy just after 8am, a short 15-minute trip and we were ready to dive in. We first made breakfast in the homestead, chatting to the family who stayed there that night. I showed Takani the table where everyone carves their name – you can see familiar names of people we know today and those who have passed. I had carved my name on my first visit when I was twelve.

We had a relaxed morning and took the buggy across the rookery roads to visit a couple of the other sheds and think about a plan for filming. We saw community in one of the sheds processing birds and said hello. Usually there would be people in the rookery from sunrise to sunset, 6 days a week. However, on this day there was rain coming so most were staying inside.

We were lucky to spend the afternoon with young Clay Maynard who showed all his favourite spots out the front of his family’s shed. Having gone there every year since he was six, Clay showed us the best swimming, diving and fish spots, all the beautiful rocks, coastlines, rockpools and where the sea grass washes up. Then he took us into the rookery where he caught six birds for everyone’s dinner. This experience with Clay was particularly inspiring and wholesome. We got a lot of great shots, and it turned out the be the formative experience of birding for the residency.

By the time the barge came back that afternoon we had heard word that the next few days were forecast for wind and rain. The advice from the rangers was that if we stayed the night (Thursday) it would be unlikely that a boat would be able to come back over and get us back to our flight on Sunday.

We had intended to camp on Big Dog next to the homestead but didn’t like our chances when the island winds and rains came in the next day, so we decided to head back to Flinders where we had a car and access to the airport. My cousin Kulai is a ranger and works on the boats while on his shifts to the islands. He said he had a spare room with two spare beds in his accommodation – we were glad to accept his offer of a few nights hospitality out of the weather.

The next days were so rainy and windy that we barely left the cabin. All three of us stayed inside: Kulai doing his work and Takani and I reading. Informed by our reading and practice, we all had some very good conversations about cultural revitalisation – how we fit and how we see ourselves as creators as well as inheritors of culture. This was rich and fertile discussion informing the project and what we were there to do. We left briefly on the second day (Friday) to walk along the beach in a break from the rain, however within five minutes the rain had restarted, we were completely soaked and retreated to the cabin.

On the third day (Saturday), in another small break in the weather we all drove up to Wybalenna. To have another look how the site is changing with the truth telling project and just to check in. Takani and I did some filming here and we noticed the bright red sheok nuts and the many wallaby and wombat bones next to the road. While exploring, again the rain came and we took shelter under the homestead and Kulai brought the Ute around to save us from the weather. Back to the cabin we went.

By day four (Sunday) the weather had cleared up. Our flight was in the afternoon, and we wanted to use the most of our remaining time to explore the island. Kulai went back off to the boats and Takani and I went to trousers point. At trousers point we enjoyed an amazing view of ocean and mountains, I collected cuttlefish and noticed some particularly beautiful geology while Takani continued to film.

We broke for lunch before deciding we had time to drive to other end of the island before our flight was to leave. We went up to Killiecrankie, armed with community stories about where to find the kika / Killiecrankie diamonds after the rain. We walked along the beach, buffeted by sand, determined to get to the mountain to find some stones. We realised too late how long the beach really was a gave up ¾ of the way around to quickly get back to the car and make the plane.

Turns out we were running late and because of the weather the plan decided to leave early. We missed the plane back to Launceston where our rental car was waiting. We were now without a car on flinders, kicked out of the airport which closed as the plane took off and with no plane due until Tuesday afternoon. Luckliy I made a few calls and Kulai came to pick us up for one more night in the cabin.

We borrowed a ute and headed to the Whitemark airport the next morning at 8am. Luckily Flinders Island aviation has said that there was a plane of children coming from Truwana/Cape Barren over to Whitemark that morning and that we could jump on as it returned to Bridport. When we arrived, Peter who runs Flinders Island Aviation, asked one of his mechanics to drive us and our bags up to the bus stop. We arrived just in time to jump on the bus and head to Launceston. An hour and a half later we arrived in the city and for $40 cash got a lift to the airport with an off-duty bus driver.

So, we arrived to pick up our rental car less than 24 hours after we were originally scheduled and managed to meet the booked drop off time in Hobart at 4pm. What an adventure.

What Harvesting and Making Happened:

• I harvested cuttlefish, shells, sand, rocks, animal bones, sheok nuts, and mutton-bird feathers.
• Much of the creativity was centred on discussion and conceptualising which was a good result from being forced to slow down on the residency.
• We also got a lot of film, photos and sketches done

Things That Made an Impression:

• The geology of the islands
• The action of the birders sticking the spit into the ground and then threading the birds to carry back to the shed.
• Our philosophical / theoretical discussion
• The free, loose and creative vibe and lifestyle of being on the islands during birding – how community are collectively working, building, plumbing, cooking, creating and living in a self-sufficient and self-determined way. On Aboriginal land, practicing culture.

Important themes: Continuing Culture

This practice remains so important to our community and our culture. It is something special to experience. But it does bring to mind all the work being done in community to study and protect the birds and the systems they rely on as well. Community have been able to learn how far the birds fly into the Southern Ocean and how climate change and increased plastic in the ocean impacts their lives and our practice. The mutton bird survey every year also records how full the rookeries are, if there are less birds or more and how big they are. The journey of Yula around the world and back, and how many variables in interconnected systems across the world impacts out ability to engage in the practice.

Important themes and messages: Land Return and Self-Determination

To see and understand what has and is created because of the freedom to practice culture on returned land is something special. A month of community going to the islands to harvest mutton birds means we get to eat all year. You can see the benefit, connection, confidence and strength that the young people who get to go over there carry with them.

Key Conceptual Framework and Questions That Inform the Process and the Form:

• Activation and Movement:
  • Like the Wukalina work this Tayaritja work needs to relate to physical action, activation and movement. I am especially drawn to the action of the birders in the rookeries stabbing the spear in the ground, then they go up and down, from lying fully on the ground with their arms in the burrow almost beyond the shoulder. Their heads pop and down above the grass and then they harvest the birds – another big movement – before threading them on the spits and moving on.
• Self-contained:
  • The work should be contained, not hanging on something or resting on something but a structure in and of itself.
  • Reflecting on what an island looks like when it is built and serviced by and for community. These created, self-determined and free mini societies. Sometimes with minimal resources but a whole island of sheds and systems built by hand. I’m imagining structures that would be made in dystopian futures when society collapses – but in a good way.

The Meeting with Uncle Jimmy:
Before leaving for the residency I had a meeting with Uncle Jimmy in which we discussed many things. Uncle Jimmy spoke of how the crayfish life cycle and harvesting season aligns with that of the mutton bird, as does the shelling season – this tied in with his discussions on relational systems which are always very intriguing and helpful to think about. We discussed our shared interest in sky country and its stories and how it’s an easy to grasp model of a relational system that mirrors our understanding of other systems of country.

We discussed the importance of expressing our role in a relational system and getting this message across to non-Aboriginal people who are also living relationship with our country and encouraging understating and appreciation of the responsibility and care that requires.

Uncle Jimmy also reminded again of the idea of country and culture as a palimpsest and how it is for us to carry, reclaim and write stories as the carriers of culture/cultural beings and creators. Uncle Jimmy also referred me to some books and Aboriginal storytellers and thinkers to explore further as we began discussing specific focuses for future upcoming residencies and the types of conversation to encourage and engage with as a community.

The discussion was very helpful and engaging and provided fertile ground for thinking more deeply into the work and embedded meanings and understandings within the greater project – which I was able to carry into discussions while on the residency.

Rayakana Milaythina – Wukalina

Why here and now:

Being that it is the ancestral country of my community and myself, it was essential to undertake a rayakana milaythina residency in the northeast. It is this country from which our people born and it was this are from which our ancestors were dispossessed.

This area is the single most culturally important area for our community today. My family traces back to Tanganutara who was born and raised around Port headland () / musselroe before being abducted by sealers into the bass strait as a girl in the 1800s. There are several names for country around that area that come directly from her – including layrapinthi – mouth of the musselroe river. All Tasmanian Aboriginal community have similar ancestral ties to this country specifically.

Our ancestors were removed from this country during the Black War waged against our ancestors by the British colony and were persuaded to leave by colonial agent George Austus Robinson, under the pretence of temporary sanctuary and respite from the violence of the war – with many of our people being removed into incarceration to Wybalenna on Flinders Island and other families descended from women abducted into the bass strait.

The residency was largely focused on the area within the Wukalina / Mount William national park being that area of country that has been least disturbed by development and farming since the dispossession of our old people. This area is notable in that there are important coastal heritage including more than 90 ‘midden’ or living sites across the coast as well as dry forests, lagoon systems and grasslands. The north east is also a stronghold of the forester kangaroo largely wiped out across the rest of the island.

This year the residency dates coincided with a community camp held within the Wukalina / Mount William National Park. This is the second year the camp has occurred, its purpose being to reconnect community to our home country as well as maintain a physical presence in the context of ongoing claims for ancestral land return.

Previously community presence has included annual camps held at Larapuna which is now returned to community under lease as well as the ongoing operation of the Wukalina walk – a tourism experience run by community within the park. There has also been years of work on a proposed sea country indigenous protected area and the expansion of the Aboriginal ranger program into management of this area.

This residency was centred around a celestial indicator recorded and passed on from our old people and revived into our language and practice only in the last few years. The star story speaks about the first fire given to our people and was originally transcribed from our old people including Manalakina – an important chief of the North East.

It has been only three years since our family started observing it and I was especially excited that the community camp fell on the dates of this seasonal indicator this year. I firmly believe that we cannot revive culture as individuals and families but that it needs to be within our whole community to be healthy and continued knowledge.

It is with this context or connecting to this cultural story and seasonal indictor that the rayakana milaythina residency took place alongside the community camp at Wukalina this year.

The Residency on Country:

This residency took place from the 12^th-16^th of December.

On this residency I took my partner and daughter as well as film maker and ceramic mentor Troy Melville. Troy was a perfect collaborator for this residency, having worked with community for years he would be able to easily fit within the camp context without being off-putting to anyone present – in fact just last year we both attended the camp filming for a different project storytelling the landscape. Troy is also an experienced ceramicist having both studied and taught the form and in the processes of establishing his own teaching studio.

We travelled up on the Friday, arriving very late at night to set up camp and begin fresh in the morning. I did see a few familiar community members up around the fire on the first night and had a good chat to them, including about the project – which was met with very positive responses.

On the morning of the first real residency day, I was able to offer community in attendance a yoga/movement class on the beach. Around seven people participated, and it felt great to be trusted to lead community through a practice that few were familiar with and it was very fun to end with a chant in language to ground ourselves into the place.

Later on that day Jam Graham-Blair and myself ran a casual palawa kani / plant and bushfood learning walk for around 15 people – largely families of children and parents in which we encouraged practicing of palawa kani as well as identifying and cultural uses significance for the plants in the area. This was another really enriching experience, getting to share, learn and practice culture alongside other community.

After lunch a lot of women were weaving river reed baskets in the shade. I sat down and actually had the patience to make my first full basket – funnily enough I first learn how to twine at Musselroe when I was a teenager and first learnt how to weave traditional baskets from Nindarra Wheatley around five years ago at Wukalina. To have finished one finally felt like an achievement that only could have happened here.

In the afternoon we went for a great swim – we found some wild clay where we were swimming and harvested some. Later I gave a little talk around the fire about the significance us being here together at this time and of the celestial indicator taking place that night and invited everyone to wake up before dawn to try to watch the star story with me. That night Jam led a smoking ceremony and we stamped/clapped and called to country in language almost at sunset which was absolutely beautiful.

That night I woke up at 3am and went down to the beach. On the way, I talked to quite a few community who had stayed up all night and seen the sky country indicator throughout the night. There were around 10 other people on the beach with me watching the sky – unfortunately at the peak time to see the indicator, the clouds set in low and obscured our view. Although I had gotten everyone to wake up at 3am for almost nothing, it was still special to be down on the beach together at that moment.

The next morning was the end of the community camp, and everyone packed up and left as the wind set in. We stayed longer and spent a lot of time harvesting and filming on the beach.

Originally we intended to spend the next few days of the residency at the community house at Diana’s basin down the east coast but there had been a devastating fire and the rangers warned it was both sad and not safe. Instead, we headed along the north coast to stay at Tomahawk.

Our day at Tomahawk I did some notetaking, reflecting and drawing before we walked the beach and crossed to the little island at the low tide line. This was an enriching and unexpected adventure that allowed us to get to know the area and see the coastline from a different angle.

The next day we travelled home down the east coast making stops at policeman’s point, St Helens and Binalong Bay before getting home.

Over the main day of the camp, I talked to as many community as I could about the rayakana project, this residency and ideas for the final showing. I got some great feedback, thinking points and recommendations for community members who could participate/perform at the final showing which was helpful.

What Harvesting and Making Happened:

• I harvested plant material on the cultural walk
• I harvested seaweed, kelp and sea shells along the beaches
• I harvested 3 different wild clays
• I made a basket and participated in some distilling of essential oils
• A lot of filming and photos
  • I have harvested the materials to create natural glazes from country and am very familiar with the materials harvested from this area

Things That Made an Impression:

• The form of driftwood, kelp and abalone shells arranged by the tides on the beach
• The communal activity – the walks, the weaving, the language sharing, observing the star stories.
• The action and vibe of participation when leading the yoga on the beach
• Fire – gathering around it, watching it and observing the sky story together

Important themes: Relationship to Ancestral Country – maintaining, rebuilding and living in relationship with our country

A key theme of this whole project – building, maintaining and living in relationship with our country came across in such potent ways throughout this residency. Having communal and intergenerational sharing and cultural activities taking place throughout the camp and finding meaningful ways to facilitate positive experiences for community was a really fulfilling part of this residency. I was struck by the forms that community created and those that were created by country – in many places on the beach it looked like the abalone shells had washed up on a natural plinth or the kelp had been formed into such beautiful shapes by the water and the sun. Most of the activities and things made were in direct response to what was on country – community went diving, harvested plants for tea and oils, wood for clapsticks and waddies etc and the vibe of the camp was very rich in culture and stories.

Important themes: Sky and Fire

In the same way the Trawtha residency was characterised by water and flowing rivers, the wukalina residency was all about fire, ocean and sky. The indicator I was focusing on is a celestial one that centres our relationship to sky country. The idea of how we relate to and live with sky country is one that provides a rich ground conceptually, added to that this indicator relates to the first fire given to our people on this country and there is much to explore and weave into the work.

Important themes and messages: Land Return

It is almost impossible to tell a story related to this area of country without highlighting and advocating for land return. It is the purpose of all cultural and community efforts relating to connecting to and caring for our country. There has not been a single generation that hasn’t reiterated the call for our home country to be returned since the agreement was made between Robinson and Manalakina in the 1820s.

Key Conceptual Framework and Questions That Inform the Process and the Form:

• Trace
  • I think this concept will continue to inform the whole project and each work created throughout the residencies. Trace “Explores practices which begin with what has been left behind…echoes, residues, impressions and marks that give presence to the past…Rather than focus on the historical and archival such practices embody forms of continuity and the cyclical…against a continued discourse of Aboriginal art that centres marks made by the individual, we turn towards forms of repetition, iteration and mediation and retracing the ancestral.
• Activation and Movement:
  • I think it’s important that the form and its ability to make sounds can embody: active, fast and movement in itself without requiring too much manipulation. Unlike the Trawtha work this one is not as gentle or fragile/spacious feeling in its activation. a feeling when activated. I think the themes and aesthetic of fire and movement will/ should come through this piece in really tangible ways.
• Fire
  • It is important that the form clearly articulates a sense of fire. I am excited to incorporate some alternative firing methods to achieve varied decorations shaped by and informed by fire itself.

The Meeting with Uncle Jimmy:

The meeting with Uncle Jimmy went really well. I feel we always have rich and inspiring discussions. So much so that we had our call on Wednesday before the camp on Friday and as a result Uncle Jimmy was inspired to come up at attend the camp on his way to the islands. It was fantastic to have him there on country throughout the residency and his excitement for reviving and reclaiming stories and practices of sky country is encouraging to myself and other community.

Throughout our conversations at the camp, we were able to look beyond the residency and start to think about the project as a whole: how it fits with broader cultural revitalisation, and encouraging the broader society to reshape relationships with our country in order to actually care for it, also the final presentation. Uncle Jimmy did express interest in participating in the final presentation if it accessible for him and it can be done on Truwana which I really like the idea of.

1. Research and Development:

To inform the development I visited the Botanical gardens near my house and had a ook at water features. I was most struck by the ones in the Japanese garden that were simply water flowing into a rock. The vibe and sound were lovely and relaxing. There was no overspill however there were pebbles beneath to disperse the water and avoid a puddle beneath the fountain.

I processed the ash, clay and rocks/pebbles I had collected while at Trawtha Makuminya into fine powders with which to make glazes. I then first some text tiles and did a triaxial blend of the kind that Ben had shown me with the material we harvested from the northeast. The glazes made were very earthy (of course!). The textures varied from very fine and shiny to very course and rocky. All were chocolate brown/deep red and some had speckles of black or a lighter yellow colour. I was very happy that these glaze tests produced promising results and decided to use solely native harvested glazes from Trawtha for this work without the addition of any commercial materials.

Creating these works started with the water – the river – the journey up the river to the wayalina and knowing I wanted the forms to be able to hold something and be closely tied to water – remembering that a sound needs to be produced in some way.

The form was refined through experimentation while on the residency as well as inspiration from working with ceramicist Ben Richardson from Ridgeline pottery. We decided that the forms would be ‘bowl/vessel’ shapes that are shaped by draping/bashing/pushing the clay over rocks beside the river. The first of these forms was created next to the Nive river outside the hut. It was a particularly beautiful bowl.

I made three or four of these while at the residency there and bisque fired them in my studio – during this firing the largest exploded while the others remained.

The others Armie and I made together by taking large thick slabs of clay, placing them over interesting rocks of various sizes and bashing them with our hands and smaller rocks until the clay spread over the rock and a bowl was formed. We went for very organic edges. Tears and holes were encouraged, as was the texture from whatever we were bashing.

• Making the Final Piece

In total 19 bowls were made. Their sizes ranged from the size that could be cupped between your hands to much larger, almost 46cm in diameter.

I chose an arrangement that would have three larger bowls in the centre. These would be formed and placed close enough together to allow water from the largest to spill into the second two. I plotted the placement of the smaller pieces to correspond with the flow of the river in the direction of the Wayalina from our residency base at the hut.

Again, during firing the two largest /the centrepieces of this these exploded and would need to be reformed. This seemed to be due to their sheer size and thickness – we had not let them dry long enough (even though it had been a whole month – we learnt for next time).

All the remaining pieces were glazed with five of the glazes made from combinations of material harvested from trawtha during the residnecy (ash, clay and rock in varying combinations).

• The arrangement and display

The arrangement was chosen to reflect the path of river from a birds-eye view. The centrepieces corresponding to where we stayed during our time there. We were able to refine the positioning of each of the bowls using the studio space at good grief and the sketch of the river’s path. I liked presenting them low to the ground. The whole instillation took up around 3m in length and 1.2 width.

• Planning the Activation

It may be because I always am so surrounded by culture when at Trawtha or because the residency occurred just after a community ceremony, or maybe because of the cultural significance of the heritage and cultural resources in the area that this work was informed by, but I associate this work and its corresponding activation with ‘ceremony’.

• Could be them being carried in a placed down in particular way
• Could be gonged or scraped
• Could be placing something in them that makes the noise
• Mixing ochre in the bowls also worked

 

Why here and now:

Trawtha Makuminya was chosen because of its many uniqueness and how special of a place it is. It is the only area of Aboriginal land that is inland and away from the coasts with which we are familiar. Not only is it inland, but it is also uniquely alpine – with plants, features and systems not found elsewhere around the island. It was bought for the community rather than handed back and was chosen due to its very high conservation and cultural values.

Trawtha Makuminya is Big River country. It was home of big river nation of our ancestors whose culture and care we can still see in country today. There are ochre sites, stone tool quarries and scatters as well as hearths all across the area. Even the name ‘Trawtha Makuminya’ speaks to it story and uniqueness – it means tracks through big river country. The word Trawtha was revived from the big river language – it means country. In Palawa kani the word Milaythina was revived for country and comes from our ancestors speaking of our home country in the northeast. Trawtha is milaythina for big river country and is not found elsewhere in Palawa kani. This word was revived only for this place, to honour it, its people and its story. It’s one of the only instances of two words being revived for the same thing – the other being the words Palawa and Pakana.

When we say the name ‘Trawtha Makuminya’ we are breathing life into the language and country of the big river peoples who land we have inherited the responsibility to care for.

 Trawtha is special in many ways – one is that there are three rivers that pass through the 5000 hectare property- the one next to the main hut is the largest and runs in the middle of the other two. I have visited and swam in two of the rivers so far – with my family last summer we spent a day walking between the two, stopping to swim as we went. In the same way Trawtha is a meeting place of rivers it is also known to be a meeting place of many nations of our old people who would come from all over the island to be there.

I chose Trawtha for this residency because every time I visit this area of land I experience and learn something new. Over the two years prior I participated in the Firesticks Cultural Fire Practitioner program, which saw us gathering at Trawtha in September in order to burn the grasslands. It was on these trips I learnt to eat the turaltiri, learnt the sweet smell and taste of the baeckea and of the medicinal properties of the oil rich hakea. It was also here that I was It was also on these trip period in September was chosen – this had been a period in which community had gathered at Trawtha the few years prior in order to burn the grassland area. It was at Trawtha that I first tasted timita/possum – cooked into a stew over a hot fire on a cold day, and here I first learnt about how to skin a payathanima/wallaby, hunted by community and skinned next to the river in summer – the skins still on display at our house in Nipaluna.

I chose September because this was the time I had come last year, and the year before It was at this time last year at that I first visited the Wayalina/ cider gum there, the story of which captivated me enough to base the entire work around them.

Wayalina are an alpine gum whose sap our ancestors used to ferment into cider. It is said that they would cut a bowl/cup into the tree itself and a tap a hole into the veins of the tree from which the sap would flow out, down the trunk and into tree bowl. After filling the hole and covering the bowl the sap would be left to ferment with natural wild yeasts, producing a sweet eucalyptus cider. This cider is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages in the world and was made only on big river country and used for communal ceremony and celebration.

Due to the almost complete dispossession of our ancestors from our country and the loss of the big river people and much of their culture this cider has not been made or tasted by our people for almost two centuries. Today many of the wayalina are found only on private land, granted farms and like. Having Trawtha Makuminya returned is the first time our people have been able access to these trees and rebuild relationship with that cultural knowledge, practice and resource.

The idea was to head to Trawtha in a period of ‘spring’. Ie when the snow was melting, the rivers flowing with snow melt and flowers blossoming. To visit the Wayalina again and see if the sap would be flowing like the rivers.

The Residency on Country

Tanganutura and I travelled up on the Monday, although we didn’t go all the way to Trawtha we did see the incredible change of the landscape as we drove up into to alpine country. On the drive to Trawtha on Tuesday morning we saw so many changing country types – beautiful scene after beautiful scene. We followed the river for what felt like a kilometre before we found ourselves at the hut beside it.

We instantly noticed that it was not looking like we had seen it any time before. There was mud, miniature tarns next to the road and the river had risen and made an island out of what had been a bank last time we were here.

It was nice to be here with the junior ranger program – we were with young community who eager to connect and learn with country as well as those who had been here for the ceremony the over the days before we arrived.

The first thing we all did was walk to the ceremony site, we spoke of what had been done and why and the importance of returning our ancestors to rest on country. We had ochre on our faces as we spoke about our families and what we liked most about being on country and what he hoped to experience while we were here. Then we went to try and visit the Wayalina.

I had been told by some of the community there that the roads had turned to rivers. I didn’t really know what that meant until we started to move away from the hut – at lower ground the roads were literally rivers, running parallel to the real river that we knew to belong there. I saw no puddles only tarns where water had pooled on flat ground and in ditches. This continued higher on our way to the Wayalina until we found an area so wet we couldn’t cross and decided to head back towards the hut.

We stopped at the grassland, and I was able to speak on the story of the area and how we had cared for it and why we have to stop the other plants overtaking the grazing area between the rivers. Here we called out to the ancestors and our country shouting in language at the top of our lungs. The group was passionate about taking action to care for country while we were there, they tried to burn some hakea and cut some down to grind into a balm, while others endeavoured to cross the big river on foot.

That afternoon Armie and Takani arrived, and we began to settle in at the hut for the evening.

Wednesday morning, we woke up to see a completely different landscape than the one we fell asleep to. There was snow covering the ground and continuing to fall. We spent a few hours watching the snow falling all around us thinking we would be snowed in. I noticed that only the river and the ceremony site remained free of the snow covering. I was struck by clearing at the ceremony site – it was so still, there was no snow around the fire even though it was out and there was a ring of dark red ochre-coloured earth around on which the snow couldn’t settle. There were two abalone shells that we used to mix and paint ourselves with ochre, they were now filled with dark red water with a layer of ice over the top – something I’ve never seen before.

The snow was coming down so much that we decided to stay inside the hut by the fire and talk concept rather than undertake any walks or harvests. I introduced Takani and Armie to the concept of trace which has been really resonating with me lately and spoke about how to include human presence in the film without overtly showing people in every shot. We also discussed some forms that had been really standing out to me as well as what we would do with community should the junior rangers be able to access the area later in the day.

The arrival of rangers from Primingkana and Nipaluna signified that the road had become more accessible, as did the sun staying out for more than 15 minutes at a time. As the snow began to melt, we decided to venture out up the road-river behind the hut heading north. This was my favourite time of the residency as I was able to walk around and notice many really beautiful things on country. I saw patterns the water made as well as some blossoming fruit and flowers and lovely patterns of rocks and cool shapes, many of which I collected or took photos of.

Not long after that the junior rangers arrived and began taking in the snow. After a while I asked them to sit down with me by the water, we spoke of how at one of the last camps uncle Jimmy encouraged silent listening and meditating on country in order to better hear the stories and lessons country shares with us. So, we engaged in a few minutes of listening beside the river. I then showed the junior rangers the things that I had collected and asked them to notice the seasons and find things that speak to them while they’re here. We also gave them some clay with which they could take impressions and moulds of anything that they wanted to remember without removing.

While they were gone, based on something I had seen another of my mentors Ben make, I draped some clay over some rocks beside the water and really loved the result. I thought the result was one of the most beautiful bowls ever – it was the shape of the river rock and had the imprint of another stone used to bash and flatten the clay.

After about 30 minutes they returned and some had bought back pigments and plants they found, impressions of leaves and branches or just stories of what they saw and did. Armie then led through a workshop of making pinch and coiled pots which many engaged well with. I had some bisque fired pieces that they painted with all the pigments they found as well as ash and charcoal from the campfire that they could take and put in the wood heater tonight to keep tomorrow. This they all engaged as well – especially those that had found the ochre and pigment themselves.

Armie then left with junior rangers for Bronte Park while Takani, Tanganutura and I settled in for another night.

The next morning the snow was completely gone. It looked completely different than the two days before. I could see clearly again all the features of the landscape that I was familiar with. So, after packing up our stuff and cleaning the hut we set of exploring. I decided to take square imprints of many of the textures by the river – these were of the trees, rocks and other interesting things nearby. I liked this so much that I decided to take more pieces to continue this process, along with the river-bowl making as we went further afield. We stopped at two bridges along the river and went again to the grassland before the rains started to come back. We danced in the open field and had fun with the camera and the drone before returning to our cars to begin the long drive home.

What Harvesting and Making Happened:

• I was given two ochres: one white and one red that were collected by the junior rangers and which I intend to incorporate into the glazing.
• I took several different plants including some baeckea. Hakea and turaltiri
• I took bowl/moulds of 4 river rocks as well as 12 texture imprints
• I took charcoal and ash from the campfire
• I also gathered some clay type soil and some smaller gravelly rocks to experiment with glaze-making.
• We did a lot of filming and took quite a few photos.

Things That Made an Impression:

• The ochre ice in the abalone shell
• That we could not access the wayalina I think this is resonating with me thematically a lot
• That the turaltiri were in season
• The snow and vast amounts of water held in the landscape
• The extreme power of the river flow while we were there
• The way the young people were so passionate about ways they could care for country.
• Red Turaltiri berries and yellow hakea flowers

Important themes and messages: The threat to Wayalina

The Wayalina remain the primary cultural resources that I am concerned with. Rebuilding this relationship is very important to me and many of our community.  Their rarity is a key element – being so hard to access and so often remaining on private properties make them a harder one to build relationship with. There are also very many threats to their health and therefore the revitalisation of the practice associate with them.

Wayalina need cold and alpine weather and lots of water. They have lots of sugar in their sap to stop them being susceptible to freezing and they need lots of water around them to be healthy. The ones I have seen are in a marshland clearing with button grass and water flowing through. This means that they are really under threat with warming climates and droughts as the environment is changing. This is something important for us to know and to highlight.

Being so incredibly rare means that they are also susceptible to disease and blights that come from a lack of diversity in plant populations – there has been an effort by community to bring wayalina from other places to grow on other areas of Aboriginal land and to try and introduce seedlings from other populations to the Wayalina.

The threats to the wayalina mean that community choose to not to revitalise the harvest of their sap – because if done wrong the stakes are so high that any loss of them may not be sustainable. I like that we have all taken this approach to care for them to ensure their survival as the way to be in relationship with them over revitalising the practice of tapping the trees. That will come later, once their health is guaranteed.

I have tasted Wayalina twice, once from the tree at Trawtha that had some residue on the trunk and once from a bucket of harvested sap, unfermented and still sweet, astringent but delicious.

Important themes: Fresh Water

Water was a clear presence while were there. In the rivers, roads, puddles and tarns. In the snow, snow melt and rain. The sound of the river was always present and the one thing we did not have to worry about if we got stuck there was access to clean fresh water. So many heritage sites are based around the rivers at Trawtha as well, which shows a carry through of their presence and importance as well.

This is a really important one – in that water is the basis of all life and is always one of the most defining parts of any area of country and of building relationship to country.

 It’s important to get across the importance of looking after fresh water sources as well – like keeping the clean and able to sustain life. Waterways are important culturally as well and getting across the need for water rights is also important to me

Important themes: Our role on Country

I think this came across in the planning of this trip as well as in everything we did and thought about while we were there. This is the framework that all community we saw there were bringing to our presence on country.

This came up when discussing about the ceremony that had just taken place as well as the clear passion for removing the hakea, caring for the river and even the junior rangers being so excited when helping a prupilathina that had been stuck in the burrow.

This comes through when we talk about protecting waterways and threatened species and is a key values underpinning land returns and this whole project. It was also something that Uncle Jimmy mentioned is important to share with the wider public.

It is important in this work or in its presentation to get across the importance to our people of caring for country. How this idea of being part of and family to our country is a key part of our culture and existence.

I really want to find a way to express our role as caretakers and mediators of country and its seasons and cycles as well as encourage others to reflect on why this should be important to everyone – ie it’s important for them to care for country too but it also important to them to do what’s in their power to ensure our community have access and governance of country so that we can undertake our cultural responsibility freely.

Key Conceptual Framework and Questions That Inform the Process and the Form:

• Trace
  • I got an understanding of this concept of trace as an artistic framework with an issue of Artlink_Indigenous in which Aboriginal artist and writers explored the artistic concept as it relates of ancestral and cultural traces for our practices as Aboriginal people. I thought this was a very useful articulation in what do and have done in my own practice and the framework under which I work.
  • Trace “Explores practices which begin with what has been left behind…echoes, residues, impressions and marks that give presence to the past…Rather than focus on the historical and archival such practices embody forms of continuity and the cyclical…against a continued discourse of Aboriginal art that centres marks made by the individual, we turn towards forms of repetition, iteration and mediation and retracing the ancestral.
    • An ancestral trace is loved with as a kind of Prescence and reengaged with through sites, ceremony and knowledge transmissions. It not simply a repetitive re-enlivening of the past but is enfolded into every inhabitation of a world of traces that was and is shaped and reshaped by ancestral movements.
    • Traces generate mobile meanings in the present and proclaims as much as is recalled – they keep us searching.
  • This work is one rife with trace and the process of following and laying down traces – this applies to the conceptual underpinning and the form itself, I think.
• Container
  • I think key to my understanding of the final artwork and its form is the idea of a container. I tend to move away from functional forms in making ceramics, like vases, bowls etc have been less interesting to me. However, for this work I am leaning back into the functional forms. I keep coming back to containers and questions of what they contain – I have the form of the carved wayalina fermenting bowl in mind, as well as the abalone shells with snow melt. I also think of the large flat water-filled containers used to reflect the stars when seeing the trees reflected in the temporary tarns at Trawtha. I really want to centre this work on those river-rock bowls shaped on and by country when we were at Trawtha. I think if the form can hold something it can hold anything – wayalina, water, snow melt etc – it’s just the question of what/if anything tangible or if it should remain empty and hold only stories and potential.
• Absence and presence
  • Once decided on the shape of the container I think the next question is what it will hold if anything. I think I want something that can hold the things mentioned but that might be empty currently. I think if focusing on the water, the wayalina and caring for country and displaying a series of containers shaped by country – it would be most powerful if most or many remain empty. I think the presence of water is important to the work as it was the dominant seasonal feature we experienced on country. I also think having some containers remain empty speaks to the story of the wayalina – not being able to fill them until we know that they are safe and healthy speaks to the primacy of our role with country as carers of it. Working this in to the final form reflects what we have now, the relationship we’re building and an optimism for the future – in that they are waiting to be filled.

The Meeting with Uncle Jimmy:

I spoke to Uncle Jimmy in the week before leaving for the residency. I spoke about the project and my interest in seasonal indicators and revitalizing our knowledge of the seasons and connected cultural practices. He seemed excited and interested in the project and really liked the choice of location – especially with his passion for native forests. When speaking about some of the important themes he again spoke of his work on describing a ‘relational ecosystem’ – the example he gave was like the solar system things aren’t just moving around up there, they are all moving in relationship to each other. He is this is the foundational understanding of our culture and country and our role as Aboriginal people. We are living in relationship to all other systems of our country and our responsibility to country and to each other flows from that.

I found this to be such a clear articulation and one that I will carry with me throughout this project and beyond.

When I spoke about how I am really liking the concept of ‘trace’ and ancestral traces in governing my practice he mentioned to me the idea of ‘Palimpset’ which is “a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing. Ie something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.” It turns out this concept has been used in art as applicable to forms, peoples taste and influences as well as landscapes. (Palimset landscapes “show layers of human and physical history, and the metaphorical use of “palimpsest” to describe something with multiple hidden layers of meaning, like the complex legacy of a historical event.”)

I found this very useful, interesting and relevant to this work and my practice and am sure it is articulating something important or is something I will endeavour to express in some way.

Uncle Jimmy said many things that resonated with me along these lines – he said, “we are the creators of a story that is continuously being told” and that we are part of the family of country. We are the teachers for others/non-Aboriginal people and must get others to understand their place in country so that it can be cared for.

The Form:

The form will centre on containers – that can hold wayalina and are shaped by the river which we stayed beside. Water will be important to the work, the presence or reflection of it will be important to get the full idea of the season and place across.

It is not important to me what colours etc are reflected. What is important is that the work is made in relationship with country – this is the key theme of the larger work, of the residency and of the process of creation. Shaping the containers from the river itself a key part of the process as is glazing them with harvested materials that we found there – it does not matter to me what the glazes look like, only what they are.

The arrangement of the containers is important. I want the arrangement to reflect the journey – either of the river or of the journey to the wayalina, like a path/map to them for when it’s time to go there and harvest.

The ‘song’ part is interesting. I think it would be cool if this one to require participation or activation to hear the sound or the full sound. I think that carries these ideas / the concept well. I think something that people have to use – like a singing bowl, or a gong or pouring or dropping into to get the sound would be cool. I will need to do some experimenting before deciding.

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)

 

Why here and now:

It was decided to launch the Rayakana Milaythina residency at Putalina /Oyster cove. This place is really important to me and there’s lots of things that make this place special. Putalina is the an area of land that has a significant story  in each era of our community’s history.

It was an important cultural place prior to invasion and has stone tool quarry and a shell living site and lots of special cultural natural resources. There’s a freshwater rivulet that flows into the saltwater and there’s lots of bush foods and weaving grasses there as well.

 It was also a mission and a really sad site during the war/colonisation era. In 1846, 46 of our ancestors who had survived the war, dispossession and imprisonment on Wybalenna/Flinders Island were sent to Putalina to live. It was an abandoned convict station that been deemed unfit to house convicts and it was thought to be a cost saving iniative following the expensive and disastrous Wybalenna settlement / prison camp. Putalina is one of the largest sites of death and forced Christian burial, with many of our people buried there. It was also a site of grave robbing with the entire cemetery being dug up by William Crowther (the second) and kept in the Royal Society / Tasmanian Museum until our community fought for their return in the 1980s.

My own ancestor Tanganutara lived, died and was buried there. Her daughter Fanny, my ancestral grandmother also lived there. It was at Putalina that she met her husband. Fanny was married and was given a land grant in recognition of her Aboriginality – choosing Nichols Rivulet, less than 15km away, so she could be within walking distance to her mother and her community living at the station/settlement at Putalina. My family lived in Nichols Rivulet for 5 generations.

Putalina was also the first area of land our community reoccupied in the 1980s, in the start of the land rights by reclamation era. Our community camped out there for months, blocking the roads and performed ceremony for our ancestors that they had returned there. It was one of the first parcels of land that was returned in 1995.

The Putalina festival was established in the 1980s as a celebration of the assertion of sovereignty. It always occurs in summer on the anniversary of the land occupation that led to its return. It’s a time when community from all over the state come to Putalina to celebrate and listen to great music.

I chose the Putalina festival as the time and place to introduce this project to community. At the time when the festival takes place is the time when the native cherries are ripe and I wanted to invite community to intentionally connect to and harvest the bush foods as seasonal indicators and cultural foods that are ready to eat while we are there.

The Residency on Country

This residency took place over the day of the festival. It involved a bush food walk and native cherry harvest. I had the MC announce that we would be doing a bush food walk to harvest the cherries and more than 50 people came over to attend. While there were some community members who were keen to join in, I would say the majority were non-Aboriginal people who I did not realise were attending the festival as well. This was my fault for not articulating clearly who the audience for this experience was. We walked for around an hour and harvested the bush food in season – I also shared some history of the site. It was good to have my mum, niece and daughter on the walk.

What Harvesting and Making Happened:

After the walk Takani, Armie and I set up a table under a marquee in the main festival area. We ran a clay workshop with lots of kids and families coming up to make things. Many made pieces that would be incorporated into the final work, writing their names on the pieces.

I also harvested plant material from Putalina that could be incorporated into the final work.