Interpretive Wonderings _ LLS GRANT

Funding or Partner Organisation: Local Land Services - Western

Start year: 2015

Summary: The proposed activity is a workshop to be held on Culpra Station, an 8500-hectare former grazing and cropping property on the Murray River floodplain outside Euston in NSW. Culpra Station comprises riverine Eucalyptus camaldulensis forests and wetlands, black soil floodplains and red sand mallee dune fields. Along with these spectacular and often ephemeral environmental features, the station has an ochre quarry, scarred trees, shell middens, fish trap, hearths and other significant Aboriginal cultural sites along with relics of a pastoral era. The project aims to focus on the sharing of these significant cultural and environmental sites, knowledge and experience through both country itself and through stories of country as interpreted and mapped by invited Aboriginal artists (including artists from Broken Hill and the Darling River), creative practitioners from art and architecture and local community members. The outcomes of this workshop will be a series of maps; analog, digital and performance based, produced through participation and collaboration between ‘local’ community members and ‘outside’ creative practitioners. This workshop, a collaboration between the Culpra Milli Aboriginal Corporation and the project team, offers the opportunity to explore and share often contradictory stories and knowledge systems through one’s own experience in developing a series of maps to further understand the country of Culpra Station through the Interpretive Wonderings Workshop. The maps produced through and as a result of the workshop will be included in the Interpretive Artefacts:Culpra Station exhibition at Mildura Arts Centre in February – April 2016. This exhibition has been agreed as a joint production of RMIT University Melbourne, UTS Sydney, Culpra Milli Aboriginal Corporation and Mildura Arts Centre as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebration of the gallery.

Publications:

Drake, C, Dziekan, V, Gilbert, J, Mehzoud, S, Pearce, B & Pearce, S 2019, 'Curatorial Design at the Cultural Interface: Mapping Culpra Station', Curator: The Museum Journal, vol. 62, no. 4, pp. 571-588.
View/Download from: Publisher's site

Drake, C, Gilbert, J, Mehzoud, S & Pearce, S 2019, 'Collected Reflections', Curator: The Museum Journal, vol. 62, no. 4, pp. 589-614.
View/Download from: Publisher's site

Drake, CJ & Gilbert, J Self published _ RMIT / UTS 2016, Local Land Services : IW _ Mapping Culpra Station, Digital Publication.

Drake, CJ, 'Instrumental', Interpretive Wonderings, Mildura Arts Centre.

Drake, CJ, 'Reflections on Culpra', Interpretive Wonderings, Mildura Arts Centre.

Drake, CJ, Gilbert, J & Pearce, S, 'Interpretive Wonderings: Mapping Culpra Station', Mildura Arts Centre.

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.