Exploring Dja Dja Wurrung country through a lens

SHOWCASING a variety of landscape prints, the Bendigo Art Gallery are currently exhibiting artist Peta Clancy’s show Undercurrent.

Exploring a significant massacre site on Dja Dja Wurrung country, the exhibit features four large scale photographic prints, expansive wallpaper piece and an immersive soundscape recorded underwater at the place.

As a descendent of the Bangerang Nation from the Murray Goulburn area of south-eastern Australia, Clancy said the project came was part of her residency with the Koorie Heritage Trust.

“I was looking at the Victorian Aboriginal Massacre Map hoping to explore sites through my work with traditional owners,” she said.

“I ended up working with the Dja Dja Wurrung people, Rodney Carter, Mick Burke and Amos Atkinson and I worked through the Dja Dja Wurrung Clan Aboriginal Organisation to get the permission to work on the project.

“The site I ended up taking photographs at really resonated as it was covered by water which I found to be a really powerful metaphor for the general population’s reluctance to speak about the massacres.”

Having spent over a year returning to the site to take a variety of photographs, Clancy said she started to overlay images of the landscape on top of itself to add some depth to her works.

“I would go back to the same site that the photograph was taken and hold up printed images of the same place in front of the landscape and rephotograph the photo which had been cut at the horizon line to overlay the two scenes,” she said.

“Through the work, I let the landscape speak to me, I thought it was powerful to just spend time at one site rather than traveling around.

“When I show the work, I’m interested in audiences looking at the images and seeing the country and the landscape and recognising that there’s something not quite right about the image which will potentially prompt them to think a bit deeper about the history.”

Working closely with Dja Dja Wurrung artist and curator Natasha Carter, Clancy’s exhibition at the Bendigo Gallery sits alongside a range of 19th century works that depict her ancestral land through a colonialist lens.

“My works are shown in conversation with these colonialist works,” Clancy said.

“What was interesting was that Natasha was curating the works from a perspective of a Dja Dja Wurrung woman, so it was important that her voice came through.”

“It has really been amazing to show it on Dja Dja Wurrung country, to bring it home and collaborate with Natasha and hopefully spark a deeper awareness of the history of the country.”

Running to 31 March, see Clancy’s Undercurrent at the Bendigo Gallery for free or learn more about the exhibition at bit.ly/2ZFBLwj.