MISTS AND SHADOWS
artist statement:
How do legacies past continue to influence our relationships with land today?
Australia’s colonial identity is predicated on fiction. The claiming, taming and exploitation of the landscape is both enshrined in folklore and etched upon the continent. Multiple stories and connections lie deep within the landscape. Some known and celebrated, others embedded beneath the surface, or relegated to the shadows.
150 years ago, my great-great grandparents journeyed from England, to an extraordinary land south. Here they put roots down in the fertile Yarra Ranges. Wurundjeri Country.
Mists and Shadows explores time, place, belonging and un-belonging in the ash ranges of Victoria and beyond.
Cyanotype is a 19th century technology used poetically, and literally in the copying of maps, documents and plans. Elemental compounds such as iron, sunlight and water are combined. Local plants, soils, and river /creek waters, have been further embedded into the process.
Captions:
Wurundjeri Country
More than 300 million years ago, a volcano erupted forming the ranges where I live. These are the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Not far from here is Bunurong Country. It is a special place.
600,000 acres
In 1835 Governor Bourke of New South Wales stated that the British Crown owned the entire land of Australia, and only it could sell or distribute land, rendering John Batman’s dubious treaty invalid. 600,000 acres of present-day Victoria, most of the Kulin Nations ancestral land, was the catalyst for these claims. [1]
Looking for Louis
“The fern trees increase in number - among their roots runs the coolest, clearest streams you can imagine. …It is one of those tropical looking spots one would rather expect to find in the south seas then in Australia …We ought to have been a thousand miles from Melbourne instead of twenty, so wild and solitary was the scene”. [2]
Letter from Alfred Howitt to Anna Howitt, January 15, 1858
Shaped by fire
“The country looked very pleasant and fertile; and the trees quite free from underwood, appeared like plantations in a gentleman's park.” [3]
The presence of small, controlled fires in the landscape was observed by many of the earliest European explorers to the east coast of Australia. Tens of thousands of years of Aboriginal land management and cultural burning went unrecognised as carefully cultivated, bio-diverse environments changed rapidly after colonisation.
Maggie & Edward Smith
Maggie and Edward Smith are my great-great grandparents. Together they made the long journey from England to Australia. From the outskirts of the growing city of Melbourne / Narrm, they put roots down in the Yarra Valley. Wurundjeri Country.
They came
When early colonists encountered the eastern ranges, most saw an area full of raw materials, with rich agricultural potential. Timber was thought of as an inexhaustible resource, or an obstacle. Swathes of giant trees, including Mountain Ash (often exceeding 300 feet) were felled by hand with an axe and cross-cut saw: a skilled, difficult and dangerous job. [4]
“In the last 200 years, more of Victoria has been cleared of its vegetation than any other state.” [5]
Yellingbo
In the 19th century my ancestors selected a parcel of land from the Crown in Yellingbo, and after a time had 1000 acres in their possession. [6]
Obstacles
Mass clearing was deemed essential to subjugate Country into productive agricultural land. For my great-great grandparents to attain a land title, the Government required regular conditional improvements. Indigenous flora (and fauna) was considered an obstacle to their progress.
High ground
Taxonomy
The wealth of the British Empire was largely based on the discovery, classification and exploitation of plants (e.g., cotton, timber, spices, dyes) furthering colonial objectives of discovery, expansion and control.
“Introduced plants now outnumber known natives in Australia”. [7]
Acclimatisation
Founded in 1861 the Victorian Acclimatisation Society was governed by the colony’s most eminent scientists who believed that Australia’s plants and animals were greatly inferior to those in Europe. Their objectives were to introduce to Victoria “all innoxious animals, birds, fishes, insects and vegetables, whether useful or ornamental”[7] and to spread indigenous plants and animals from the colony to other parts of the world. [8] [9] [10]
Blackberry
In 1858 government Botanist Ferdinand Von Mueller began cultivating blackberries at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. On his travels throughout Victoria, it’s reported he spread the seeds into the bush from his saddlebag. [11]
The good we will do
Proclamation by Frederick McCoy, foundation Professor of Natural Science at The University of Melbourne and first director of the National Museum, at the first annual meeting of the Victorian Acclimatisation society in 1862. [12]
Birrarung / Yarra River [13]
Birrarung:
For tens of thousands of years, Birrarung has been central to the cultural life, identity and livelihoods of Wurundjeri people. Flowing from its mountain source to eventually meet the salt waters of Bururong Country, Birrarung provided plentiful resources and continues to be an important place for spiritual and community connection.
Yarra River:
‘Early European observers admired the beauty of the Yarra and marvelled at its plentiful fish and fowl. But within a decade they had cleared its banks of trees and polluted its pristine waters. And this was only the beginning’. [14]
Threats to the river today include litter, sewage, pollution, urban development and invasive species, exacerbated further by population growth and climate change. In 2017 legislation passed through parliament to help protect the river for future generations - the Yarra River Protection Wilip-gin Birrarung murron Act. Wilip-gin Birrarung murron translates in the Woiwurrung language as “Keep the Birrarung alive.” [15]
Becoming
The landscape has always loomed large in the imaginary of settler Australia. Yet these relationships have been fraught from the beginning.
On this vast continent - particularly vulnerable to the worsening climate crisis - and all around the globe, the stakes are rising.
As we expand our understandings of the past, present and places we dwell; connections form and momentum for change grows.
Footnotes & references:
[1] Original map caption reads "MAP of PART of NEW HOLLAND Showing the Territory of GEELONG and DUTIGALLA. Acquired by Treaty with the Native Chiefs, 6 June 1835." Source: State Library of New South Wales.
[2] The Colonial Earth by Tim Bonyhady. Fern Fever, p107. Melbourne University Press, 2000.
[3] Observations of Sydney Parkinson, Botanical Artist. Arrived on the HSM Endeavour with Lieutenant James Cook and Joseph Banks in 1770. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia. By Bill Gammage, Allen & Unwin, 2012.
[4] 90” cross cut saw courtesy of Lyle Murray.
[5] Phases of Ecological Impact of the European Occupation of Victoria. Prepared for the Victorian National Parks Association by Don Garden, 2014. https://vnpa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Appendix-1-Phases-of-Ecological-Impact.pdf
[6] Original photo: Bridge over Woori Yallock Creek, Yellingbo, 1890. W.H. Smith. State Library of Victoria. http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLV_ROSETTAIE1518997&context=L&vid=MAIN&lang=en_US&search_scope=Everything&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,yellingbo
[7] 'Introduced plants outnumber natives', Australian Geographic. By Clementine Thuilier, August 14, 2012. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2012/08/introduced-plants-outnumber-natives/
[8] The Rules and Objects from the Annual report of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria: with the addresses delivered at the annual meeting of the Society... 1st-7th (1862-1871). P19 Tout-Smith, D. Acclimatization Society of Victoria in Museums Victoria Collections. https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/1803.
[9] In the early 1870’s they became the Zoological and Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, the earliest incarnation of the Melbourne Zoo.
[10] Medal – Acclimatisation Society of Victoria Bronze, 1868. Museum Victoria Collections https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/286996
[11] Introduced plants, State Library of Victoria, Ergo, http://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/explore-history/land-exploration/environment/introduced-plants
[12] First annual report of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria: with the addresses delivered at the annual meeting of the Society, November 24th, 1862. Page 40. Biodiversity Heritage Library. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/243545#page/3/mode/1up
[13] Double-sided Artist book marked embedded with Yarra River /Birrarung waters.
[14] First Peoples and The Yarra, (approved by the Wurundjeri Woi wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation), https://www.oldtreasurybuilding.org.au/yarra/first-peoples-and-the-yarra/
[15] Yarra Strategic Plan (Burndap Birrarung burndap umarkoo) Draft, An Overview, 2020, p4, https://www.melbournewater.com.au/about/strategies-and-reports/yarra-strategic-plan . Victoria State Government, Waterways and catchments, Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017. https://www.water.vic.gov.au/waterways-and-catchments/protecting-the-yarra/yarra-river-protection-act