women's past, present, future

This is just about finished. It is my representation of MaRauaRa (meaning ‘two fingers beside’), the junction of the Darling (Paaka) and Murray (Millewa) Rivers. This is such an important site, not just because of it’s environmental and historic significance, but it’s cultural significance as well: Nearby is the largest prehistoric Aboriginal burial ground in NSW, which was used for 12,000 years until European contact. I want to record a lot of these sites through my art.

Picture the creative serpent, scoring deep into – scouring down through – the slippery underground of the mudflats, leaving in its wake the thunder of tunnels collapsing to form deep sunken valleys. The sea water following in the serpent’s wake, swarming in a frenzy of tidal waves, soon changed colour from ocean blue to the yellow of mud. The water filled the swirling tracks to form the mighty bending rivers spread across the vast plains of the Gulf country. The serpent traveled over the marine plains, over the salt flats, through the salt dunes, past the mangrove forests and crawled inland. Then it went back to the sea. And it came out at another spot along the coastline … When it finished creating the many rivers in its wake, it created one last river, no larger or smaller than the others, a river which offers no apologies for its discontent with people who do not know it. This is where the giant serpent continues to live deep down under the ground in a vast network of limestone aquifers. They say its being is porous; it permeates everything. It is all around in the atmosphere and is attached to the lives of the river people like skin.