Join us for lunch and a long stretchy conversation with renowned storyteller and artist Aunty Julie Freeman, leading artist Aunty Cheryl Davison, and artist-curator Jonathan Jones.
Renowned Gweagal/Wandiwandian storyteller and artist Aunty Julie Freeman, leading Walbunja/Ngarigo artist Aunty Cheryl Davison, and Wiradyuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones will lead a conversation over lunch.
Together, these artists will share important stories about local culture, plants and animals over a delicious meal prepared by Bundanon’s Executive Chef Douglas Innes-Will.
Aunty Julie Freeman
Aunty Julie Freeman is a highly respected knowledge-holder from the South Coast region, and is an accomplished and recognised artist, cultural leader and storyteller.
Aunty Julie’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 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, graphics arts 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.
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.
bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country
bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country is a body of works by renowned Gweagal/Wandiwandian storyteller and artist Aunty Julie Freeman, leading Walbunja/Ngarigo artist Aunty Cheryl Davison, and Wiradyuri/Kamilaroi artistJonathan Jones.
The season upholds and maintains Aboriginal values and kinships, featuring an immersive gunyah (home) installation including drawings by the significant Yuin artist Mickey of Ulladulla, a solo exhibition of paintings by Aunty Julie sharing grandmother stories of local plants, animals and weather patterns, and a new installation by Aunty Cheryl Davison, representing the importance of Burrawang seeds, a key traditional food source.
