Bundanon

A major collaborative project between artists Aunty Cheryl Davison, Aunty Julie Freeman and Jonathan Jones.

Bundanon has announced bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country, an exhibition of new works created by Walbunja/Ngarigo artist Aunty Cheryl Davison, Gweagal/Wandiwandianartist Aunty Julie Freeman, and Wiradyuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones, opening on 2 November 2024.

Celebrating local stories and upholding local Aboriginal values and kinships, this major collaboration between the renowned First Nations artists will feature large-scale installations, a 75-metre-long mural and new paintings, as well as significant cultural objects. The season will also include drawings by 19th century artist Mickey of Ulladulla. Loaned from key collections across Australia, these works provide a historical anchor to the season.

Bundanon guest curator, Jonathan Jones, is a member of the Wiradyuri and Kamilaroi peoples of south east Australia and is well known for his evocative site-specific installations and interventions into space. Working across a range of mediums, his work explores and interrogates cultural and historical relationships and ideas from Indigenous perspectives and traditions.

For bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country, Jones has invited Aunty Julie Freeman and Aunty Cheryl Davison, two significant senior artists and storytellers from the south east whom he has known for many years, to collaborate on this major new project. Both artists’ families are deeply rooted in the NSW South Coast with Aunty Julie Freeman having connections from La Perouse to Wreck Bay and Aunty Cheryl from Wallaga Lake to La Perouse. Collectively, their work upholds and maintains Aboriginal values and? kinships by celebrating local stories and culture.

In Bundanon’s main gallery space, the three artists have created a large-scale architectural gunyah structure built from 84 turpentine trees harvested from the Bundanon site. The tall upright trees, which are familiar to the dense forest environment of the Shoalhaven, will form this immersive indoor installation. Suspended from the gunyah structure in the canopy space will be screen-printed skyscapes created by Aunty Cheryl Davison. These new prints depict the local creation story of the glossy black-cockatoo and Cambewarra Mountain, near Bundanon.

A 75-metre mural by Aunty Julie Freeman and her daughter Markeeta Freeman will wrap around the walls of the gallery, mapping the coastline from Sydney to Gippsland. The work illustrates the significant bays, beaches, rivers and mountains that make up the South Coast physical and cultural landscape.

The mural will be interspersed with drawings by the nineteenth century Yuin artist Mickey of Ulladulla. Mickey’s works are a rare depiction of early colonisation and the shifting cultural landscape through an Aboriginal viewpoint, connecting narratives from the past and present. On loan from the National Library of Australia, the National Gallery of Australia and the State Library of NSW, this presentation marks the biggest showing of his works in recent years and the first time that many of the works have come back to Country since they were made.

Bundanon’s Gallery 2 will present Aunty Julie Freeman’s first ever solo exhibition, featuring a major suite of new paintings that document grandmother stories of the plants, animals and weather patterns from the escarpments, mountains and waterways of her Country. Celebrating the strength of women, each painting is presented alongside a cultural object, further contextualising the stories shared by these living ancestors.

In Gallery 4, Aunty Cheryl Davison will present an installation, building on her body of work that celebrates local Aboriginal stories and the unique South Coast environment, she’ll use soft sculptures to tell stories of her family and community.

Connecting the three gallery spaces will be bespoke soundscapes, featuring recordings of local oceans and streams, stories spoken in the local language, and cockatoo birdsong. These new soundscapes sing the stories of place, celebrating local traditions and the ongoing collaboration of these three artists and cultural leaders.

Artist Jonathan Jones, said: “Both myself and Bundanon are so lucky to be working with Aunty Julie and Aunty Cheryl, such significant artists who until now have not been given the recognition they truly deserve. This is a really special moment where we can put a spotlight on these extraordinary women and their stories, while creating a project that’s deeply embedded in this place and could only happen at Bundanon.”

Rachel Kent, CEO, Bundanon, said: “Bundanon is thrilled to present Bagan Bariwariganya: echoes of country, an exhibition that shares the significance of this place through image and sound, physical immersion and storytelling. This important project celebrates local traditions and the ongoing collaboration between these three important artists and cultural leaders.”

OPENING WEEKEND

Saturday 2 & Sunday 3 November | bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country Opening Weekend

To mark the opening of this new exhibition season, Bundanon will present a full weekend of celebrations, weaving and printmaking workshops, song and campfire yarns. Admission into the Art Museum will be free all weekend.

IMAGES AVAILABLE HERE

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MEDIA CONTACTS: To request interviews, further information or imagery please contact Articulate: Siân Davies sian@articulatepr.com.au 0402 728 462 or Sasha Haughan sasha@articulatepr.com.au, 0405 006 035.

ABOUT AUNTY JULIE FREEMAN

Aunty Julie Freeman’s mum was a shellworker and artefact maker from the La Perouse Aboriginal community on Bidjigal Country with cultural connections to the wider Sydney and Illawarra region, including the Gorawarl clan, whose traditional Country includes present- day Kurnell on the southern shores of Kamay (Botany Bay) of the Dharawal Nation. Aunty Julie’s dad was a Wandiwandian fisherman of the Yuin Nation, born on the Coolangatta Estate near Nowra on the South Coast of New South Wales. Like many La Perouse and South Coast families, her family joined the Aboriginal fishing community of Wreck Bay near Huskisson, a place of great diversity where everyone could stay connected and safe. Aunty Julie comes from a long line of storytellers and artists, and from an early age, she learned the local tradition of shellwork from her mother and grandmothers. Aunty Julie is a highly respected knowledge-holder from the South Coast region, and is an accomplished and recognised artist, cultural leader and storyteller.

ABOUT AUNTY CHERYL DAVISON

Aunty Cheryl Davison is a Walbunja/Ngarigo woman who was born in Bega and spent her early childhood on the shores of Wallaga Lake on the far south coast of New South Wales, before her parents moved the family to Nowra in the early 1970s. She is an artist, singer and storyteller, having founded Djinama Yilaga, a choir singing songs in the Dhurga language in 2018.Aunty Cheryl has taught visual arts, graphic art and printmaking, creating the foundations for a diverse arts practice, and works as Aboriginal Creative Producer for the Four Winds Festival in Bermagui, programming cultural events featuring some of Australia’s leading musicians.
She also served on the Gulaga National Park Board of Management that governs the direction of care for the Yuin people’s beloved and sacred mountain Gulaga.

ABOUT JONATHAN JONES

Jonathan Jones is a member of the Wiradyuri and Kamilaroi peoples of south-east Australia. He first worked with Aunty Julie Freeman and Aunty Cheryl Davison as an emerging artist in 1997, in an exhibition curated by Aboriginal photographer Dr Peter Yanada McKenzie. Jones works across a range of mediums in minimal repeated forms to explore and interrogate cultural and historical relationships and ideas from Indigenous perspectives and traditions. Jones has exhibited both nationally and internationally since the late 1990s, and his work is represented in major public collections throughout Australia.