A Wadawurrung welcome

A SIX-metre-high mural by Wadawurrung artist Dr Deanne Gilson has been installed within the Visitor Information Centre at the Town Hall.

The visual acknowledgement of country will aim to highlight the area’s First Nations heritage and connect visitors, and residents, to its natural environment, native plants and animals.

Gilson’s featured paintings feature Wadawurrung people, her mum Aunty Marlene Gilson, their ancestors, King Billy and Queen Mary of Ballarat at the Black Hill lookout, the Yarrowee Creek, or Yarramlok as it is known to first peoples, thirteen black swans from Lake Wendouree, and an emu constellation.

“The mural has a deep family connection to me, showing my mother and extended family, as we gathered during the first Welcome to Country,” she said.

“The Cultural Tree of Knowledge was created to describe the trees and the stories they hold both past and present, intangible and tangible.”

A pillar of the City of Ballarat Traveller Experience Plan 2021 to 2024 is to support First Peoples products, interpretative signage and storytelling.

Ballarat Visitor Information Centre serves about 25,000 people each year and is open Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 5pm and weekends from 10am to 4pm.