Mourning for Menindee
, 2020
Wreaths (Barramundi scales and cotton flowers) decal-ed emu eggs and unfired clay platforms on circular timber plinth; 120cm diameter (plinth) x various heights (averaging 25cms).
Courtesy of the Artist and Milani Gallery.
Mourning for Menindee
Mourning for Menindee comes as we continue to witness ongoing ecocide to one of the “Australia’s” most important river systems, The Murray Darling Basin Authority continues to fail the nation and and the connecting Traditional Owners and custodians whom have lived with and protected the river systems for centuries.
Alarmed by the enormous fish kills which saw hundreds of thousands of fresh water fish species suffocate to death from the blue-green algae blooms along with the unrecorded deaths of Emu, Cope felt compelled to make mourning ceremonial wreaths with cotton flowers and fish scales whilst listening to incompetent colonial powers struggle to accept responsibility for the ecological catastrophe.
Uncle Bruce Shillingworth:
“We just came back from the big Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroborree on the rivers: Walgett, Brewarrina, Bourke, Wilcannia, Menindee. I took a convoy of 300 people and, on the rivers, we had about 1000 at the Corroborree each night.
Those on the journey spoke to our elders in those communities; they wanted to hear from those communities. They have been voiceless for the last couple of years.
Water mismanagement, corruption and corporate greed — capitalism — in this country has killed our rivers. They have killed our communities.
We've been out in those communities: health has deteriorated; our old people are now dying; our young people have a high rate of mental health problems and suicides. The people on dialysis can't get water to flush their machines. So they've got to migrate, move on to bigger towns and cities.
A lot of the First Nation people are leaving their tribal lands — lands that they've lived on for thousands and thousands of years.
How do we bring back the 50-year-old-cod?
How do we bring back the freshwater mussels?
How do we bring back the aquatic life, the ecosystem and the animals that relied on the river and the water?
They are now completely dead: they're extinct.
This has happened over the last 100 years.
Australia needs to wake up.
I'm listening tonight. There are two things I can hear: water and profit.
Why are we selling water to make profit? That's what I'm hearing.
My people on the river, that relied on those animals for their food source for thousands of years, are now dying.
This is the second wave of genocide that's happening in my community.
So, I'm going to speak for my community. I'm going to raise a voice for those that have been voiceless over the last 230 years.
That's what frustrates me and that's what is frustrating our community.
Why are our people dying young? Why are our people suffering?
Because of the greed. The taking of our water.
Where is First Nations rights to water? We have a right to fresh water!
Put the water back in the river — not just for us — but for the environment.”
Transcript from ABC Q&A; October 29, 2019.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
- The Image is not Nothing (Concrete Archives); Curated by Lisa Radford & Yhonnie Scarce.
ACE Open for 2021 Adelaide Festival, 26 February - 24 April 2021
Exhibition toured to Margaret Lawrence Gallery, The University of Melbourne, 13 May 21 - 26 Jun 21.
https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4913/a-reason-to-re-imagine-the-image-is-not-nothing-28c/
The Image is not Nothing, 2021, Margaret Lawrence Gallery. Documentation by Lucy Foster
Photo by Michelle Eabry
Photo by Michelle Eabry