
in creating a major artwork for Berninneit.
By Laura Brearley
A RIVER flows through Maree Clarke. She is a saltwater and freshwater woman, with Boon Wurrung, Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba and Mutti Mutti heritage. Maree is a prolific and generous artist who brings together ancient and contemporary practice to reveal and pass on cultural knowledge.
Maree spent her formative years on the banks of Dhungala (Murray River) on Latje Latje Country near Mildura. Her work is profoundly informed by Country and culture. Maree is highly regarded across Australia and internationally and recognised as a leader in contemporary southeast Aboriginal arts. In her creative practice, she weaves together cultural knowledge, organic materials and leading-edge technology. Maree has played a significant role in strengthening cultural identity through the revival of possum-skin cloaks, her clay Kopi caps of mourning and associated rituals, and her necklaces made of kangaroo teeth, river reeds and feathers. Maree’s work references loss and is also deeply generative.
A RIVER flows through Maree Clarke. She is a saltwater and freshwater woman, with Boon Wurrung, Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba and Mutti Mutti heritage. Maree is a prolific and generous artist who brings together ancient and contemporary practice to reveal and pass on cultural knowledge.
Maree spent her formative years on the banks of Dhungala (Murray River) on Latje Latje Country near Mildura. Her work is profoundly informed by Country and culture. Maree is highly regarded across Australia and internationally and recognised as a leader in contemporary southeast Aboriginal arts. In her creative practice, she weaves together cultural knowledge, organic materials and leading-edge technology. Maree has played a significant role in strengthening cultural identity through the revival of possum-skin cloaks, her clay Kopi caps of mourning and associated rituals, and her necklaces made of kangaroo teeth, river reeds and feathers. Maree’s work references loss and is also deeply generative.
Maree has been commissioned by Bass Coast Shire Council to create an artwork for Berninneit, the new Cultural Centre in Cowes, Millowl/Phillip Island. The commission involves broad community engagement in the making of a six-metre-long glass canoe which will be suspended from the high ceiling in the Grand Hall of the building. The artwork has strong cultural resonance and is inspired by waterways and wetlands, river reeds and long journeys. Maree is deeply committed to the revival of south-eastern Aboriginal art and this project is part of that revival process. The project is called ‘Yawa’ which means ‘long journey’ in Boon Wurrung language.
Everything in Maree’s creative practice is about relationships and interconnections. Along with three generations of her family, Maree has just delivered a master class in creative community development at Berninneit. Over three days, hundreds of community members from Bass Coast were welcomed into the experience of collaborating to help make the canoe. We worked in small groups, arranging patterns of coloured glass into panels that will ultimately form the body of the canoe. We talked quietly as we worked, a sideways kind of connection that felt intimate and playful. There was an easy sense of connection and an appreciation of being part this community journey.
Circles within circles, we were inspired by the designs within river reeds that Maree’s collaborations with biologists at Melbourne University had revealed. Under microscopes, river reeds appear as beautiful organic artworks of converging circles and patterns. For the ‘Between Waves’ exhibition at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in 2023, Maree wrote about how river reeds look under a microscope: ‘I saw unseen worlds that look like so many different things; nebulas, weavings, eyes, seascapes, brushstrokes, cobwebs, bubbles, chicken wire, coastlines, whole galaxies and more.’ |
The river reeds in Maree’s practice reveal her deep connection with Country and with culture.
In several artist talks that she gave over the weekend, Maree described her creative and cultural practice. She explained that traditionally, river reed necklaces were gifted to people passing through Country as a sign of safe passage and friendship. Over the course of the three days, community members worked in small groups on the glass panels of the canoe, creating patterns inspired by the beauty of river reeds at a cellular level. We also worked with the organic material of river reeds, peeling them back to reveal the inner core of the reeds. These will eventually be made into 50-metre-long necklaces, their length signifying the extent of losses endured by First Nations people.
Maree’s family members played a significant role in the workshop. They helped in practical ways, working together to support Maree, as well as the participants. In a corner of the room, Maree’s great nephew Mitch Mahoney worked on a possum-skin cloak. You could feel the strength of the family, the young baby of the family being lovingly cared for and the quiet presence of Graham the dog, watching on and keeping people company.
When the workshop was over, it was all hands-on deck as the glass panels were carefully packed up in readiness to be sent up to the glassworks in Canberra. There, they will be fired at a high temperature and the individual glass pieces of coloured glass will melt into one. While still hot, the panels will be curved and shaped into the body of the canoe, and holes drilled into their corners, ready for the wires that will suspend it.
In a few months’ time, it will be ready. We will come together again to celebrate the canoe’s new home at Berninneit, our community gathering place. It will catch the afternoon light from the west, revealing the colourful patterns of river reeds and dappled waterways. It will reflect back to us what we have co-created, who we are as a community and the special Country on which we live.
The poet John O’Donohue writes:
‘I would love to live like a river
carried by the surprise
of its own unfolding.’
The ‘Yawa’ project has invited us on a long journey which will continue to unfold, inspiring the generations to come.
In several artist talks that she gave over the weekend, Maree described her creative and cultural practice. She explained that traditionally, river reed necklaces were gifted to people passing through Country as a sign of safe passage and friendship. Over the course of the three days, community members worked in small groups on the glass panels of the canoe, creating patterns inspired by the beauty of river reeds at a cellular level. We also worked with the organic material of river reeds, peeling them back to reveal the inner core of the reeds. These will eventually be made into 50-metre-long necklaces, their length signifying the extent of losses endured by First Nations people.
Maree’s family members played a significant role in the workshop. They helped in practical ways, working together to support Maree, as well as the participants. In a corner of the room, Maree’s great nephew Mitch Mahoney worked on a possum-skin cloak. You could feel the strength of the family, the young baby of the family being lovingly cared for and the quiet presence of Graham the dog, watching on and keeping people company.
When the workshop was over, it was all hands-on deck as the glass panels were carefully packed up in readiness to be sent up to the glassworks in Canberra. There, they will be fired at a high temperature and the individual glass pieces of coloured glass will melt into one. While still hot, the panels will be curved and shaped into the body of the canoe, and holes drilled into their corners, ready for the wires that will suspend it.
In a few months’ time, it will be ready. We will come together again to celebrate the canoe’s new home at Berninneit, our community gathering place. It will catch the afternoon light from the west, revealing the colourful patterns of river reeds and dappled waterways. It will reflect back to us what we have co-created, who we are as a community and the special Country on which we live.
The poet John O’Donohue writes:
‘I would love to live like a river
carried by the surprise
of its own unfolding.’
The ‘Yawa’ project has invited us on a long journey which will continue to unfold, inspiring the generations to come.