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On show from December 2008 to March 2009 at Switchback Gallery, Gippsland Centre for Art and Design was Bubbles on the Surface III, the culminating exhibition of a three year partnership between Indigenous artists, Monash University researchers and the gallery. The exhibition was about water use in the Murray Darling Basin and visitors experienced a sensory journey through water story places from the Narran Lake in north western NSW down the Darling River to the Murray River in Victoria.
Featured was the work of leading indigenous artists, including Baakantji artist Badger Bates and Yorta Yorta artist Treahna Hamm.
In the exhibition catalogue, Monash Faculty of Education researcher Professor Margaret Somerville, who led the three-exhibition project wrote, “The exhibition.is about the always unfinished business of singing the country which is something that happened in ceremony. Each time the song, story, designs, and performance comes together in a place, that place and all the creatures in it, are re-created. Creation stories are cyclical, multiple and contemporary. There are millions of creation stories for all of the places and creatures and everyone has some responsibility within these stories to sing the country. Through this singing the deep past of the ancestral spirits of the land, the historic past of the Old People who knew its songs, and the contemporary present of artists who sing the country through their art, are brought together.”
Artist Treahna Hamm is known for the traditional possum skin cloaks she made for the Commonwealth Games Opening and Indigenous Parliamentary Opening ceremonies. She was artist in residence at the Gippsland Centre for Art and Design studios in late 2008 and using Churchill reeds constructed woven works for the exhibition, as well as making works in a range of other media. Sculptor and printmaker Badger Bates exhibited stunning carvings and lino prints which tell stories of water places in his country. As part of Monash sustainability week, on the closing day there were public talks by both artists, a weaving workshop by Treahna and a traditional cleansing ceremony by Gippsland campus Indigenous Liaison Officer Wayne Thorpe.
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Yorta Yorta artist Treahna Hamm with her woven works depicting wind spirits |
