Yarabindja Budjurung I & II

In 2021, Cope collaborated with the Australian Print Workshop (APW) and master printmaker Martin King to produce a new body of work titled YARABINDJA BUDJURUNG I and II. This was the artist’s second collaboration with APW and was developed remotely from the artist’s studio on Bundjalung Country, Lismore, New South Wales. The works include two multi-panelled colour lithographs, each illustrating Cope’s Ancestral Country near Stradbroke Island and surrounding regions of mainland Brisbane. ‘Yarabindja Budjurung’ translates to ‘beautiful sea country’ in the Quandamooka people’s language Jandai; the works are a conceptual documentation of Country. The artist takes the birds-eye perspective, resisting the horizon line to transform our understandings of place and time. Like her site-specific installations, Cope’s prints exude an exuberant energy and vitality and transform our understanding of the landscape.

Being a saltwater woman and growing up with these sorts of cultural foundations it's very important to our identity and our sense of being with ourselves and then to each other and the land is very much informed by a specific location. That being Moreton Bay at large but more specifically North Stradbroke Island, where we have long lineage of many, many relatives coming from the same place. Multiple shared histories, multiple experiences, but [there is] something about that specific Country that really gives us our sense of self and it also informs the way we see the world.

from Shonae Hobson, '‘New Australian Printmaking’
National Gallery of Victoria & Australian Print Workshop, Publication, 2022.