SITEWORKS 2022: BUNDANON ART MUSEUM
BAAYANGALIBIYAAY
Gali gaay guwaaldanhi, dhuu-bala gaay guwaaldaay
Garran.garra gaay guwaaldanhi, ngulawaa-bala gaay guwaaldaay
Giirr ngiyani gunimaagu gaaydjuul guwaaldanha
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A story told of water but also of fire
A story told of drought but also good seasons
We (us and country / the mother) are telling one story
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Dhanggal / (large) river mussel; an endangered keystone species found in the freshwater river systems of Ywaalaraay and Gamilaraay ngurrambaa (northern NSW and southern QLD). Critical for maintaining healthy waterways, dhanggal acts as a filter - absorbing, growing, transforming, supporting and living in direct response to relationships held in kincentric ecologies.
This newly commissioned body of work created at Canberra Glassworks for Siteworks 2022 at Bundanon focuses on a small collection of very old dhanggal, 60-80 years old or more collected from the dry river bed which had perished along with more than 2 million others in the Murray Darling Basin between 2017 - 2020 (at the height of the NSW drought).
A story of materiality and memory which looks to the glassmaking process to record, absorb, reflect and transform its body as a means by which to translate great periods of upheaval and environmental crisis across river landscapes.
The embedding of materials collected from Bundanon sees each individual shell as a recorder of time and place, specifically connected with extreme events of fire and water. With glass ranging from translucent to opaque, black to white, pure to gritty, this subtle yet striking reflection and collection of memory in / of country connects to moments of immense change and comments on ’the body’ (self and country) as holder of experience + trauma.
Baayangalibiyaay (with having the natural balance / order of all things in the living world);
an exploration of people, place + notions of ‘wellbeing’.
A new body of work acknowledging country, and created in collaboration with Canberra Glassworks for Siteworks at Bundanon consisting of a selection of 100 sand cast glass Dhanggal (large / old river mussels) translating different stages / states of wellness (people & place).
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Siteworks 2022: From a deep valley, a major new exhibition in the Art Museum, titled Inside, underground exploring the concept of interior weather. Raw physical materials become containers of environmental and sensorial data informed by the artists’ personal encounters with Bundanon, generating new forms of material knowledge that reflect our changing relationship with the natural world.
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Exhibiting Artists: Carolyn Eskdale, Susan Jacobs, Kate Scardifield, Lucy Simpson, and Isadora Vaughan.
Curated by Sophie O’Brien and Boe-Lin Bastian
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Images courtesy Zan Wimberley and Lucy Simpson.
