Invocation

Indigenous and introduced grasses and leaves including mat rush (Lomandra longifolia), kangaroo paw (anigozanthos), flax lily (Dianella), snow grass (Poa costiniana), fan palm (Livistona), screw pine (Pandanus tectoris), bangalow palm (Archontophoenix cunninhamiana), saw sedge (Gahnia), bulrushes (Typha), red hot poker (Kniphofia) and natural dyes from argyle apple (Eucalyptus cinerea) and mistletoe (Muellerina eucalyptoides), dimensions approx. 40 x 20 cm

As a non-Indigenous weaver born and living on Aboriginal land, my practice connects me to my own ancestral traditions, but also to the ongoing injustices of colonisation and dispossession. Weaving with native and introduced plants harvested across the lands that have sustained me (including Walgulu, Wiradjuri, Ngambri, Ngunnawal, Dharug and Gumbaynggir Country), I am asked to reckon with the complexity of belonging to Country that is not my own.

This woven vessel is an offering to the countless generations of Walgulu and Wiradjuri women who delivered new life within the ancient and magnificent birthing tree at Brungle, near Tumut, NSW.

With this offering I both honour my belonging here and pay homage to the Peoples and cultural practices of this place. The open weave invokes stillness and holds space gently in a way that listens, rather than speaks.