#wallumedegal country

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: Looking towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the construction site of the new Gladesville Bridge, which opened sixty years ago this week, Huntleys Point, Wallumedegal Country, March 1962. Photo by a member of the Tyler family

[ethanhe3]

Peta Clancy Week

Undercurrent is Peta Clancy’s landscape photographic work produced from a 12-month residency with the Koorie Heritage Trust. This work was created while exploring frontier violence and a massacre site on Dja Dja Wurrung country that is currently submerged under water due to the construction of a weir in the 19th century (Noosa Regional Gallery, 2021)

Peta Clancy’s Undercurrent at AGNSW, The National New Australian Art 2019 (AGNSW,2019)

Through a process of documentation and re-photography, Peta photographed landscape (in a custom frame) taken previously on the same location. A distinct line in the middle of each image separates the trees and water. As what Peta and the community members believe in, water is healing and it covers the massacre site so that no one can walk on it.

In terms of the installation in exhibition, it’s more than the traditional ‘pictures on the wall in a white cube’ type of work. It features 4 large scale prints on top of full height wall paper and immersive sound recorded underwater on site. The landscape wallpaper makes it feel like it’s three-dimensional because it creates an extra layer by having a wallpaper background behind those multiple-layered images.

There are a lot of undocumented massacre sites around Australia and we might not even realise what happened underneath the visible surface of the ground that we walk on every day. From the beginning of 2021, I started photographing a documentary photography project on the land of Wallumedegal, currently known as the Ryde-Hunters Hill area.  The project is about exploring what is disappeared as well as urban development and changes to landscape. One thing I learnt from Peta is to spend time with the locals and learn hidden histories within the community. With my project I feel like that next step is to spend even more time on site and build up a connection with first nation people in the area.

My project Wallumedegal’s installation view (draft)

Referencing

Noosa Regional Gallery, 2021. Peta Clancy: Undercurrent, https://www.noosaregionalgallery.com.au/exhibition/peta-clancy-undercurrent/

AGNSW (2019). The National New Australian Art 2019 [Image]. https://www.petaclancy.net/#/new-page/

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: Opening day traffic, Gladesville Bridge western approach, Huntleys Point, Wallumedegal country, Sydney, 2 October 1964 (photographer unknown)

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: Taxi and tourists, Sobraon Road, Marsfield, Wallumedegal country, Sydney, circa 1980 (photographer unknown)

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: “Upside-down sky”, Eastwood, Wallumedegal Country, Sydney, circa 1960. Photo by Jennifer Lippmann (caption corrected)

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: Safeway, Marsfield, Wallumedegal country, Sydney, circa 1980 (photographer unknown)