“The Earth Above: A Deep Time View of Australia’s Epic History”
Title:
- The Earth Above: A Deep Time View of Australia’s Epic History
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Artist Statement:
The show explores Australia’s past 140,000 years, incorporating traditional and scientific knowledges to tell Australia’s epic story and transport viewers to four locations: Girraween Lagoon on Larrakia and Wulna Country outside Darwin in the NT; Cloggs Cave on GunaiKurnai Country in Victoria’s East Gippsland region; Lake Mungo in NSW on the land of the Barkandji/Paakantyi, Ngiyampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people; and Jiigurru (Lizard Island) on the Great Barrier Reef, which is sacred to many, including the Dingaal community.
Creating ‘The Earth Above: A Deep Time View of Australia’s Epic History’ has been a deeply collaborative experience. Our work together on Country made the stories better. Co-creating these stories echoes connections that have been made between Indigenous knowledge systems and emerging research that transforms our shared understanding of Australia’s deep time history.
The Australian First Nations’ understanding of Country represents a complex system that is much more than a place. All facets of the environment – rock, tree, river, hill, animal, human – are formed of the same substance by the Ancestors who continue to live in land, water, sky. Country exists as a ongoing, relational experience. It doesn’t matter the form (bird/ plant/ human etc) – being on Country means being in a relationship with this elements that are inherently part of us, as we are part of them. Ultimately this film is expression of Country and of a philosophy of Country – an ontology of Country, as well as an acknowledgement that different knowledge systems – when they enter into sustained and careful dialogue and deep listening can transform our ways of being.
