kanalaritja tunapri : the new generation

The art of shell stringing is a valued Palawa cultural tradition that has remained intact and continued without interruption since before white settlement; it is a tradition that is many thousands of years old. This exhibition sees this important tradition continue to thrive in a contemporary sense, as the art of stringing is passed down from generation to generation. Mother teaching Daughter. Grandmother teaching Granddaughter.

The compulsion of culture

Making something culturally is special.  Making this way requires all the parts to be considered carefully and handled properly. Each element in the hand-made has existing meaning and also makes new meaning.  Every new making in the world by a Tasmanian Aboriginal person is an action of defiance against the generations of time when our Ancestors were decimated and their existence denied as sovereign people on unceded lands and waterways.   By making against the grain of colonization our people continue to assert our presence, renew and maintain connections to the same places, on and in Country and waters, as our Ancestors. By doing so cultural knowledge and the skills required to transform elements from nature into objects of culture is transferred between people, usually family, and always between people and the living beings of place. The symbiosis between living things is a kind of dance, with the ocean, the life force of this planet, its natural centre.  The repetition of waves meeting shores, the pulse of kelp pulled back and forth provides the tempo, language and materials for makers to honour the provider, the sea. Our necklace form, circular, without end or beginning, whether made from the reiterative resources of the sea or the land, mirrors the longevity of a culture where duration is measured by ice ages not centuries. Our determination to continue is quietly evident in the transference and reemergence of skills and knowledge, despite the violent invasion of our country, and our exile from Ancestral lands and waterways. Our cultural makings register our resilience, pride and persistence against all the odds endured by our Ancestors, that continue to beset us, and still we rise. 

Julie Gough, December 2022 

With grateful acknowledgement of Maya Angelou