Mt Arapiles links in with Gariwerd (Grampians), with the red ochre emu prints and the links to the creation story of Tchingal the Giant Emu. These prints are also found at the Black Range, keeping us all linked to mountains and rivers. Aboriginal mob were the first rock climbers to get to where some of the quarry sites are at Mt Arapiles. Djurite is a landmark in our region, and is a huge influence on me, as I have visited many times since childhood and experienced a range of emotions relating my connections there. I feel safe but the past is always there. I always think about Aboriginal people being the first rock climbers; able to reach the nooks and crannies of the quarry areas at Djurite to practice such deadly skills in surviving in all sorts of seasons and conditions. The area was a well-known stronghold for our Aboriginal warriors and the local clans.
Caring for country is about access to land, about keeping ceremony. For me, it is about direction—breathing in country through following our Songlines and special places. It is about the longing that unfolds in understanding responsibilities surrounding such care of country as linked through Creation, spiritual connection and mother earth connections. It is about Creation stories and links to Tchingal the Giant Emu, through tracking the red ochre prints. It is as much about our learning through our life stages as it is about us defining who we are; it is in our DNA that we feel strong in our identity.
I felt a lot of the inspiration for this artwork (Watching and Stronghold, 2017) has come out of talking to people in my community who have a passion for history and for learning about our strong Wotjobaluk mob. Historical impacts of trauma from a localised perspective of the Wotjobaluk mob is something I have drawn upon to create inspiration and a theme. Part of this narrative is in the stories of Warriors and their families and wives; how they all strongly resisted the violence of the frontier times. From 1830s, our intricate and complex society was severely impacted upon. I often gaze upon Nicholas Chevalier’s work, such as Mount Arapiles Sunset (late 19th century); the Aboriginal people look so small against the Arapiles cliffs, living their lives holistically, making a campfire to cook and feed their families.
Invading white explorers Mitchell and Eyre went through our country in the 1830s. The country was broken up after that to be given to squatters, taking away duties of caring for country from the mob. We were then forbidden to utilise those traditional hunting and gathering lands. The pastoralist’s sheep would have been most attractive to the displaced local Aboriginal peoples trying to feed themselves. One Aboriginal warrior, Yanem Goona, was caught taking sheep from near Djurite to Lake Hindmarsh (Guru), and was sentenced by a magistrate in English—a language he did not understand. He later passed away in harsh imprisonment in Tasmania. It is said in historical documents that he cried when the Wimmera was mentioned. He left wives back home who would not have understood what had happened to him.
Yanem Goona passed away in custody and our extended family has recently been dealt the blow of another such death, one that is still an open wound for all of us. Why are such extreme events still happening today, and why do we still have such huge disadvantage, creating further trauma? Despite it all, through sheer stubbornness, we still maintain our culture and family values as survivors.
In referring to earlier frontier violence this way, my artwork does not intend to reflect blame and negativity, but to acknowledge what has happened as land and access to property became more important than having empathy or understanding of others. This dynamic remains ongoing today, and we are peeling back the complex layers of race/identity/privilege and finding out there is still a lot of bigotry in our societies.
I am concerned with the political directions that are strong at present, with closing ourselves away to immigrants in trouble, and how ultimately, as Aboriginal people, we still have our lives controlled in a government sense as to what we can have as Traditional Owners through the Native Title system that takes away as much as it gives in terms of balanced access/opportunities for all Traditional Owner families. In the process, our clan views get lost and forgotten, and in one sense, we have not moved on from the Mission Days and control of people and resources.
Our society is matriarchal, and has a very strong kinship system based on lore and spiritual balance. I gain more appreciation for the complexity of our culture through learning about our localised place in the world. It is important to pass on culture and create more understanding between people. My work is about this in many ways, as it is about defining identity in a personal context, not based on assumed facets of identity. It is about building a perspective based on personal self and feeling; in considering the written word that documents our oral culture through Blak eyes, even if we do not fit the stereotypical image people presume of us.
Horsham Regional Art Gallery Collection
The images in Manja* were inspired by paintings by Chevalier and informed by the experience of looking over towards the Little Desert region. The idea came to mind in the middle of the night. Sometimes this scares me; at night when you have ideas, practicality is not often present and details can blur. This art has been a challenge for me in relation to steering away from paint and canvas, into a new area of work. I am not a photographer but I have been able to utilise photography to emphasise a feeling of everything being unresolved.
I use the images to express loss in sites of violence. The images also relate to the feeling of being distanced from land despite being the original inhabitants of this land. The images reflect moments in time, thinking about Yanem Goona and his family and their presence still at Djurite today despite barbed wire fences and cropped land. Richard Frankland (a wonderful Gunditjmara man) has said that we should not call places like this massacre grounds, but battlegrounds. He refers to them this way out of respect to warriors, some of whom were only young, who were so brave to take up spears against guns.
I remember two policemen on a travelling whim, writing a blog some years ago wanting to film around Djurite. At the time I was also finding out more about the area with a researcher I know. We discussed Yanem Goona; he said that it was sad to read about Yanem Goona, since Yanem Goona did not understand the magistrate who sentenced him and the magistrate obviously did not have any empathy for him. I always wonder what happened to Yanem Goona’s wives. That was when I suddenly took up the cloak† as well, to feel the past with the present; it was about longing for peace and that lingering feeling of the menace of the violent frontier days. A lot of this violence is unresolved still; we have a lot of trauma handed down over the generations. For many Traditional Owners, it is not seen as simply something that happened long ago. During the process of making the images, I felt a lot of the pain and suffering coming out of the work in my dreams at night. Putting the ideas for the exhibition together brought home for me how what happens in the past is not something that can, or should, be forgotten.
Edited by Maddee Clark.
*relating to hand.
† The cloak is very symbolic in terms of reclamation of culture. We had Maree Clarke, a renowned Indigenous artist, spend time with us in Dimboola to learn how to shape, stitch the possum skins and use the pyrography machine to make designs on the cloak itself. It has great meaning as cloaks were reflective of identity and symbolised the place of everyone in the kinship and family structure. It also kept our people very warm through cold nights. The patterns on the cloak represent the river system and the history of the Wotjobaluk people.
Images © Gail Harradine. Both purchased through the Horsham Art Gallery Trust Fund. Pigment Prints on rag paper.
About the author
Gail Harradine (b. Dimboola) is a Wotjobaluk/Jadawadjali arts practitioner, curator and teacher. She holds several tertiary qualifications: two from Melbourne Uni, another from Ballarat Uni, and a fourth from Deakin Uni. Gail is a long-standing arts practitioner referencing the Wimmera and Grampians/Gariwerd region and has been involved in numerous exhibitions including Yalukit Willam (St Kilda). She works mainly in the areas of painting, printmaking, silversmithing and has recently been working on conceptual work through photographic means.
She has produced group and individual exhibitions in Canberra, Melbourne and country Victoria over a number of years, drawing on family history and cultural connections to the Wimmera region of Victoria. Additionally, her work has been showcased within a number of Government reports and initiatives, and utilised for logos. She worked previously at the National Museum of Australia and Koorie Heritage Trust Inc., showcasing Indigenous art. A particular passion of hers is to support other South Eastern Australian Aboriginal artists in promotion of culture in their region. She acknowledges highly significant Indigenous artists such as Maree Clarke and Vicki Couzens in encouraging her with cultural reclamation practices.
She has been shortlisted in the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards on two separate occasions and won the inaugural Dr Alister Hinchley Acquisitive Art Award (2013) locally. She is the first local Indigenous artist to have her work as part of the collection at the Horsham Regional Art Gallery, following on from a significant exhibition at Natimuk’s Goat Gallery in 2017. Other works are in the National Library of Australia, Dept of Justice Indigenous Issues Unit, Austin Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital, City of Melbourne, Koorie Heritage Trust Inc Collection, City of Stonnington, and Melbourne University.