SYMPOSIUM | More Than a Tarrang (tree) | Melbourne Museum | Save the Date 2 November

Description

More Than a Tarrang (tree) is a research symposium presented by Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab, Monash Art Design and Architecture. Tarrang is the Boonwurrung word for tree shared by N’Arweet Professor Carolyn Briggs AM. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which this event will take place, the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation.

Responding to the exhibition More Than a Tarrang: Memory, Material and Cultural Agency at Bunjilaka Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum, More Than a Tarrang (tree) brings together First Nations artists, curators, designers, and scholars with non-Indigenous collaborators to consider the intersections between Indigenous ways of knowing and practice-led research.

The premise of More Than a Tarrang (tree) is that trees are living entities and part of a matrix of relations with Country, Ancestors, people, animals and the more-than-human. It is an agency that continues to be articulated through practices of mark-making.

More Than a Tarrang (tree) brings this premise to the museum to reveal how First Nations artists and communities are reconnecting with collections of cultural belongings, and restoring the kinship many of these belongings have with trees, Country, and the Ancestors.

Additional funding for More Than a Tarrang (tree) has been provided by BLAK C.O.R.E. Initiative, Department of Museums and Collections, University of Melbourne, and the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative “More than a guulany (tree): Aboriginal Knowledge systems”.

Convenors: Professor Brian Martin, Professor Brook Andrew, Kimberley Moulton, Dr Jessica Neath

Keynote address

Professor Norm Sheehan is a Wiradjuri man, born in Mudgee NSW. Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, he is recognised as contributing significantly to the development of Indigenous Knowledge as an academic discipline

Research presentations

Israel Tangaroa Birch (Ngā Puhi, Ngāi Tawake, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rakaipaaka) is an artist currently working from the Manawatū, Aotearoa – New Zealand and is the Mana Whenua Design Lead for his iwi in Te Matau-a-Māui, Hawkes Bay.

Dr Paola Balla is a Wemba-Wemba and Gunditjmara artist, curator, writer, and academic based at Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit, Victoria University, Footscray.

N’arweet Professor Carolyn Briggs AM is a senior Boonwurrung Elder who has been involved in developing and supporting opportunities for Indigenous youth and Boonwurrung culture for over 50 years. She is Elder in Research at RMIT University and an Adjunct Professor in Wominjeka Djembana Indigenous research lab.

Dennis O’Brien is a Kaurna and Narungga man from Adelaide in South Australia.  Passionate about culture, language and history, he is currently completing a PhD in Indigenous Studies at Flinder University.

James Tylor is a Kaurna artist and writer based in Tarntanya Adelaide. He is currently undertaking a PhD  at University of South Australia on Reclaiming Northern Kaurna Place Names from South Australia.

Zoe Rimmer is a Pakana (Tasmanian Aboriginal) curator, cultural practitioner and community leader. Formerly Senior Curator of First Peoples Art and Culture at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Zoe is currently completing her PhD at the University of Tasmania about repatriation, cultural revival and developing First Peoples museology.

Greg Griffiths (given English name) Bulingha Murri Ganuur (given name, skin name, totemic name) is a proud Guyinbaraay man of the Gomeroi people. Based in Gunnedah, New South Wales, Greg is recognised for his knowledge of language and ceremony and has been a cultural practitioner for over 40 years.

Kimberley Moulton is a Yorta Yorta woman, writer and curator. She is an Artistic Associate with RISING Festival and a PhD candidate with the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab Monash University. Formerly Senior Curator South Eastern First Peoples Collection, Museums Victoria (2016-2023), she has recently been appointed as an Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art at Tate Modern.

Professor Brian Martin is the Director of the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab at Monash University Art Design and Architecture. Brian is a creative practitioner and descendant of Bundjalung, Kamilaroi and Muruwari peoples.

Dr Jessica Neath is an Australian art historian of settler descent and Research Fellow at the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab, Monash University.

Professor Brook Andrew is a Wiradjuri, Ngunnawal artist and curator, Enterprise Professor in Interdisciplinary Practice and Director of Reimagining Museums and Collections at the University of Melbourne.

Bradley Webb is a Bundjalung/Dunghutti man from northern New South Wales. He is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Monash University and is currently undertaking a PhD with the Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab.

Deep Design Lab is an interdisciplinary research group that focuses on creating better worlds for all living beings operating at the intersection of architecture, ecology, technology, and ethics. The members contributing to the symposium are: Dr Stanislav Roudavski, an artist, architect and researcher at the University of Melbourne; Alexander Holland, an architect, designer, data scientist, and researcher at the University of Melbourne; and Julian Rutten, a mechanical engineer, landscape architect and researcher at Swinburne University.

David Tournier is a Boonwurrung cultural practitioner, Senior Cultural Heritage Officer with the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council and a current board member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative.

Please note: more speakers to be announced as well as a full program of events across 2 and 3 November