A celebration of art, culture and storytelling

The Queenscliff community will come together next week to mark the launch of a book celebrating the artistic and cultural practice of an acclaimed local Wergaia and Wemba Wemba artist.

Madjem Bambandila: The Art & Country of Kelly Koumalatsos brings together decades of Kelly Koumalatsos’ work, spanning mediums such as sculpture, painting and possum prints, with photos and reflections on Koorie community and art.

The book has been co-written with academic and artist Dr Paola Balla, a Wemba Wemba and Gunditjmara women who has both looked up to and been inspired by Ms Koumalatsos in her own work and career since the 1990s.

“Kelly’s work is quintessentially south-eastern, and it beautifully represents the heart, strength and power of Koorie art as a continuing sovereign force,” Ms Balla said.

Madjem Bambandila, which means possum rug, to shine in many colours, has been described as taking the form of a possum cloak, a nod to the work Ms Koumalatsos is best known for, with the book stitching together the voices of several others across an array of conversations, essays, poems and personal reflections.

“To me, it’s really lovely because I like short format, literary tracks of writing, and there you have it: you’ve got poems, you’ve got essays and you’ve got interviews.

“Personally I love that, and I think it really works well with all the graphics spread across the book.”

Ms Koumalatsos, who previously lived in Queenscliff for approximately 18 years before moving to Leopold, said it was important to her to bring the book home and launch it first in the small township where she spent so much time making garments and thinking about her practice.

“I feel like it’s unfinished business for me that I need to take it back to Queenscliff.

“It’s the most important thing to me that I be in little Queenscliff and have a little launch and be in the space, in that community, where I had a studio for years.”

She said putting the book together had been life-changing and most importantly, had made her children richer.

“In a non-western way, my children become rich.

“As people who have had so much removed, to map out some stuff – that doesn’t mean they have to do what I did – but they will learn that they can write, even if you’re not a professional writer. They will learn that you can make things.”

She said there had been a significant increase in racism across the country since the Voice referendum and that Madjem Bambandila was full of tools to help empower both her own children as well as other Aboriginal children, grandchildren and great grandchildren into the future.

“These are tools where you carve out a space, where you mitigate racism and oppression. So that’s the importance; it’s actually quite political at the end of the day.”

Presented by the Bookshop at Queenscliff in association with Museum Victoria, the book launch will take place tomorrow (Tuesday, July 23) from 6pm in the Wirrng Wirrng room at Queenscliff Library.

Ms Koumalatsos will appear in conversation with non-Indigenous academic Deakin University’s Dr Shelley Hannigan.

For tickets, head to the Bookshop at Queenscliff Facebook or Instagram page.