Continuum - Hanging lamp

41.5 × 41.5 × 10cm Gumnuts, quandong seeds, hessian, red and yellow ochre, emu fat, recycled garden hanger and lamp, 2022 & 2025

Mother and daughters practising cultural continuation through visual art. Exploring ancient and modern techniques to ensure cultural knowledge is maintained and passed on through the next generation. Keeping culture and identity strong whilst also maintaining connection to country and family.

The artwork was lovingly assembled, symbolic of the connection they share and how they maintain cultural preservation. The human hair comes from matriarch Regina McKenzie a staunch elder and activist for culture and heritage.

Cultural knowledge transfer from elders to youth, the next generation, sharing storyline/ song lines, bush medicines, food, traditions, song and dance, sharing of knowledge by elders by fire light/ light to next generation.

Connecting physical and spiritual, underlining the importance of cultural continuation through preservation of all that is sacred and special to us and for us. Of where we are and belong to, of what we must protect and hold onto tightly so that it might be passed on. We have been here since the first light and must keep the fire burning, this is the key to us and our culture surviving.

The Quandong seeds refer to the planting of the seed of knowledge and nurturing that, the coral gumnut from the eucalyptus is the bush medicine, the embrace of our ancestors, the ochre and emu fat grounding us ever so gently to mother earth from which we came and

shall return too. The hair, fibre of being, DNA passed on and carried, grey with immense knowledge and years of living intwined throughout our lives. The emu feathers flutter in the air coming together like we do to celebrate all that was, is and ever will be. The light of thelamp the knowledge like light shining outwards, its light filling the woven baskets beneath its light representing the next generations the minds of the youth, being filled and empowered by our elders and ancestors with age all knowledge to continue in infinite bliss the cycle of life.