Megan Cope and Keg de Souza, Soil Stories of Coranderrk, 2023. Installation view, The Soils Project, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Yarra Valley, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photo: Andrew Curtis.
The Soils Project
Soil Stories of Coranderrk, 2023
Megan Cope and Keg de Souza have created a series of earth maps of Coranderrk using the process of soil chromatography. With the guidance of the Wandin Family, the artists have collected samples of soil from significant places throughout the site that hold specific histories and as well as cultural memories. Acknowledging that Place is multiple, complex and interrelated, these stories of Place that have been held through the soil and are shared through these mappings. Place is alive within the soil, these maps literally hold Place in them.
Through soil chromatography the images create marks on paper resembling the inner rings of trees or even fungi, in this work the artists seek to reveal depths of the earth, the microscopic elements create landscape images through the chromatography, as the soil striates and spreads across the paper to tell these stories.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
- The Soils Project, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Yarra Valley, 5 August–12 November 2023
- Soils, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 15 June–12 November 2024
The Soils Project
biiknganjinu ngangudji (Wurundjeri Woiwurrung) - see our Country, 2023
This work is a collaboration with Brooke Wandin whose sound work biiknganjinu ngangudji (Wurundjeri Woiwurrung) - hear our Country, 2023 accompanies the illustration.
The original pastoral run known as View Hill consisted of about 12,000 acres (4,800 hectares) extending between the present-day township sites of Yarra Glen and Healesville. The station was named for a distinctive knoll rising some 75 meters above the river flats, 0.7 kilometres north-west of the present Tarrawarra Abbey.
The horizon lines were drawn from the elevation of 85 meters above the river flats to capture an entire vista of wurundjeri biik, connecting Nations beyond the horizon are also present. A sense of disorientation is the first sensation, followed by a process of locating oneself to place and people. Voices of the land speak to the mountains.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
- The Soils Project, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Yarra Valley, 5 August–12 November 2023
- Soils, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 15 June–12 November 2024
Megan Cope and Brooke Wandin, biiknganjinu ngangudji - see our Country (detail), 2023, The Soils Project, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Yarra Valley, 2023. Courtesy the artists and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.
Images left and right: Megan Cope and Keg De Souza, Soil Stories of Coranderrk, 2023; Megan Cope and Brooke Wandin, biiknganjinu ngangudji - see our Country, 2023. Installation view, The Soils Project, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Yarra Valley, 2023. Courtesy the artists and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photo: Andrew Curtis.
Megan Cope and Keg De Souza, Soil Stories of Coranderrk, 2023; Megan Cope and Brooke Wandin, biiknganjinu ngangudji - see our Country, 2023. Installation view, Soils, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 2024. Courtesy the artists and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.
Images left and below: Megan Cope and Keg de Souza, Soil Stories of Coranderrk, 2023. Installation view, The Soils Project, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Yarra Valley, 2023. Courtesy the artists and Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane. Photo: Andrew Curtis.
