Re:Imagined (London, 2025)
Painting is a way to understand my ancestry as an Aboriginal woman in a modern and often very confounding world.
For me to understand something is to deconstruct an idea and rebuild it into a digestible tableau. It takes a lot of imagination to scroll back through 250 years of Colonisation and re-construct a place in ones mind that is very different to the one we live in today.
For 3 years now, I have been fortunate to be afforded much time in British Museum archives. The majority of this time has been spent working on a self-driven project Gadigal; Yilabara Waḻa (Gadigal; Now and Then). My intention is to recode myself with the physical skills and traditional knowledge brought about by employing the original methodologies of working with natural materials to create the archival treasures held at the Museum. These skills are not something I possessed at the beginning of the project, but are now slowly being fashioned as I re-imagine the making of items. I have spent much time photographing, measuring and then physically creating treasures such as a traditional possum skin cloak, a necklace made from reed and a dilly bag made entirely of hand spun cordage from the bark of a native hibiscus tree.
To remake these tangible objects is the first phase of the work, but to RE-imagine them is where the true joy lies. “Country cannot speak for itself, so art must speak for Country.” Neale & Kelly, Songlines, 2020 p.54
RE: imagined is the first body of works on linen, a meditation on the natural materials used for these beautiful treasures. It is a safe place where my hands can explore a new world RE: imagined and inspired by their making.
These works are therefore a blueprint for the next evolution of my work with British Museum where my own artistic interpretation of the past becomes the future.
This work is deeply personal to me. It allows me to feel a sense of joy by looking into our past whilst using my own hands to RE: imagine my future.
