Kinyingarra Guwinyanba

Following from 6 years of research based sculptural practice investigating the impact of the early colonial lime burning industry and devastation of both Aboriginal middens and oyster reefs in Quandamooka Sea Country, Kinyingarra Guwinyanba (which means ‘place of oyster rocks’ in Jandai & Gowar language) is a hand built sculptural formation returning to Country to create living sculptures for the future. 

Resting on the intertidal zone near Myora, The project builds on the legacy of our ancestors, interrupted by colonisation, the legacy that we are now seeking to continue. 

Kinyingarra Guwinyanba is a living, generative land and sea artwork that demonstrates how art can physically heal country that has been colonised through the practice of ecologically restorative and ancestral processes. 

The process of planting these sea gardens, a new generation will rise from the mud and rocks and Kinyingarra shell.

Ocean

The ancestor speaks, it is the ocean, it is the race that washed the continents with its veil of sufferings; it says this race which is song, the dew of song and the muffles perfume and the blue of the song, and its mouth is the song of all mouths of foam; Ocean! You permit, you are the accomplice, maker of stars; how is it you do not open your wings into a voracious lung? And see! There remains only the sum of the song and the eternity of voice and childhood already of those who will inherit it. Because as far as suffering is concerned it belongs to all: everyone has its vigorous sand between their teeth. The ocean is patience, its wisdom is the tare of time.

(The Restless Earth - Movement, far from Shores. P50, Édouard Glissant)

The work Kinyingarra Guwinyanba was created with funding support from Create NSW and the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.  

EXHIBITION HISTORY

Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean, Oceanside Museum of Art, California, 17 August 2024–January 19 2025

Water is Life, Bayside Gallery, Brighton, 29 June–25 August 2024

With Nature, Canberra Contemporary Artspace, 10 February–Saturday 6 April 2024

Busan Biennale 2022: We, on the Rising Wave, Busan, 3 September–6 November 2022

LOW PRESSURE, Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane, 12 March–2 April 2022

This language that is every stone, Institute of Modern Art, Meanjin/Brisbane, 12 February–23 April 2022

PRESS
Video: ABC ART WORKS

Articles: ABC News IMA Exhibition