Dominique Chen and Libby Harward’s work was included in Caitlin Franzmann’s commissioned exhibition Natural State, at The Condensery, Somerset Regional Art Gallery.
The program included a yarning circle and artist talks.
Exhibition essay by Dominique Chen.
(Untitled) Nja gan. Nja gan budirgu. Nja gan ninyangurra. Njine, ya, wandji ga:wa Yinibara Djawun. Ngali ninayinyili ngam. Ngali djagunan ninayinyili. Ngali djagunan ninayinyili ninayiny gubagulabu. Ngali Yinibara, Ngugi, Gamilaraay, djagunan Yinibaran, gabiyili, yagabiliny. Niyani nuwa. Niyani ganu nuwa. Niyani yaliwunga nuwa. Ngarri-y, marama-li, guwaal-ay, dhawun Yinibara-gu, 2022 - ongoing.
Materials: Bonyi, water, mud, air, microbes, bacteria and other inhabitants. Sounds of djalan/yinnar on Yinibara Country. Knowledges and memories of our ancestors.
(Dimensions): Variable and relational.
Through ice-ages, the rise and fall of megafauna, and the relatively recent moments of foreign arrivals….we have been here, present, alive and co-evolving with Country. Shaping and being shaped.
We share kinship with and within bloodlines and lifelines of the prehistoric bonyi, or bunya pine tree. Like our ancestors, here we are together on Yinibara Country to listen, share, connect and co-create through a deep understanding of our responsibility to our Living Culture. Each of us, different but welcome. Respectful and reciprocal. Always accountable. Never contained, walking and being in our own sovereign spaces.
Fermenting is (like) culture, always regenerating, always relational. Like yinnar/djalan/black woman on dhawun/djara/djawan/Country, it is listening and co-creating, in the most intimate of collaborations.
The presence of those within proximity, makes agitation, relation and co-creation inevitable. Breath, air, words, ideas, time, bacterias, histories, all influence and shape its boundaries and governance. Holding space, changing space. For many, in accordance with the Lore of Country. Collaborating…never overtaking, always remembering.
Fermenting culture is safe, and in most cases, very forgiving. Holding a spectrum of transformation within relational boundaries, always changing. Much easier to stomach. Willing healthy digestion, knowledge and Country revitalising.
Here our relation, our kin—this bonyi ferment, holds presence for us. It is speaking.
We are attending to our own business, but we are not gone.
Photography by Filmertography.
Dream Palisade 2019 is an expression of how we can all be fortified by hope in light of changing climates and rising sea levels. The work houses buried aspirations, forming a barricade against the incoming tide, wind and rain.
Winner of the Award for Artistic Excellence at the 2019 Strand Ephemera Sculpture Festival, Townsville, Queensland, Judge Bradley Vincent said:
“It is a work that, like the best works, reveals more and more layers the more time you spend with it. We were first struck by its form, the perfect scale and presence for its location and the way it allowed itself to be framed by the its surrounds. It invites the viewer down from the foreshore, onto the beach,”
“Once you are near, you notice the materials used. It speaks beautifully to the history of land art, being made of the very material of its location. This is such a perfect way to talk about environmental issues – here, a message of the need for both action and preparedness.
“Then we see the pillowcases standing in for traditional sandbags. They evoke a feeling of both nostalgia and of familiarity. We can probably all find in there a particular pattern that we ourselves have slept on at some point. In this way, this is a work that speaks to both the environment and the individual, placing each of us firmly in the frame.
“Finally, we returned at night to find gentle lights embedded in the work, casting an inviting glow. It is a truly deserving and timely winner.”
The following are film projects based on Kangaroo Island, South Australia:
Goanna 2023 - In precarious proximity to the pace of a nearby road, is a short yet intimate glimpse into the life of a Heath Goanna. While goannas were once a common presence on the Fleurieu Peninsula— they are now rarely seen.
Goanna is a cinematic wildlife film that brings us with care and curiosity into the world of the goanna, prompting a reflection about our own understanding of and closeness with the more-than-human inhabitants of place. Like the protagonist in the film, Goanna asks us to wilfully feel into future, and the possible gifts of regeneration.
6:30 minutes
Awards/Recognition
Best Documentary, Fleurieu Film Festival - South Australia
Best Cinematography, Fleurieu Film Festival - South Australia
Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge 2017 reveals a largely forgotten world - one some speed past every day. Much of the wildlife on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island have to share their home with speeding steel projectiles. In this documentary we discover what they have to endure to survive.
This film tells the story of the Rosenburg's Goanna, Hooded Plovers, and the Kangaroo Island Kangaroo. It is a true wildlife documentary illustrating wild animals doing wild things.
25 minutes
Awards / Recognition:
Best Independent Production, Green Screen International Film Festival - Eckernförde, Germany.
Gold - Ron Taylor AM ACS Wildlife/Nature Category, Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Official Selection, Wildlife Film Festival Rotterdam - The Netherlands.
Official Selection, Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - New York, U.S.A.
Nominated for Best Documentary & Best Cinematography - South Australian Screen Awards
Something Akin 2021 was projected as part of the “Dhawun Guwaala-y” exhibition, at Nexus Arts, South Australia, curated by Dominique and Samuel Chen and “All the bees are [not] dying” exhibition, curated by Peter Breen at the Kingaroy Regional Arts Gallery, Queensland.
It is a collection of moving imagery from Kangaroo Island, that resists the western-lens of objective looking, rationalising and spectacle-making. Rather than imposing a prescribed narrative upon the landscape, the work invites quiet observation, sensitivity, curiosity and an active engagement with the natural environments and scenes depicted. Something Akin allows and withholds understanding and perspective, making space for the viewer to question and reflect upon personal and cultural connections, truths and positionings as they relate to the more-than-human world.
The work was filmed during the 2019 summer bushfires on Kangaroo Island as part of a project funded by Inspiring SA (South Australian Government), looking at various ways of perceiving and understanding environmental change. While the included scenes may look empty and lifeless—even after significant or damaging fire, country is always moving, connecting and responding. Sometimes in stillness is the remembrance of our obligation to do the same.
Yuruwan is a not-for-profit that supports the growth and capacity of grassroots, urban-based Aboriginal food and medicine growing through practical and culturally-centered learning, education and other opportunities and initiatives—developed by and for Aboriginal people, and their families and communities.
In 2023, Walking Story established Yuruwan with the wonderful help of Creo Legal. Dominique and Samuel Chen continue to support Yuruwan as company Directors.
To find out more, see the Yuruwan website www.yuruwan.org.au.
One of two site specific sound installation / performance works made in collaboration with Tom Blake (momo doto) for the 2018 Queenstown Unconformity Festival.
A Score to Scratch the Surface (Opening Scene) takes participants on journey in which Queenstown’s myths and realities slowly merge with the landscape. Starting in the dress circle of the 1930s Paragon cinema and finishing at a table in the foyer cafe, A Score to Scratch the Surface (Opening Scene) is a roaming sound work composed of local field recordings, archival sounds and fragments of stories reflecting the diverse threads that link people to an environment.
All First Nations mobs are welcome to come along and enjoy a morning of sitting, talking, sharing and learning around urban-based bush foods and medicines.
The events will be held every three months, and will include sharing around propagating from seeds/cuttings, soil health, foraging and ‘guerrilla gardening’, connecting stories, and sharing resources.
There will also be some native grain damper cook-ups, native grass weaving, and cups of tea by the fire.
The Blak Laundry is a functional laundromat — and exhibition space — for conversation, collaboration and celebration of all things Blak.
Created and activated by Dominique Chen (Gamilaroi) and Libby Harward (Quandamooka), the concept is simple: bring your dirty linen, pop it on a warm wash, and engage in critical conversation whilst it cleans.
In The Blak Laundry, everything comes out in the wash.
The exhibition and laundromat was held at Munimba-ja art and culture space as part of the Horizon Festival in 2023, and The Woodford Folk Festival in 2023/2024.
Pop–up performance pieces with invited guests that agitate ideas and discussion are regularly scheduled, and shared via The Blak Laundry Facebook and Instagram pages.
Keep an eye out for future iterations and productions of The Blak Laundry coming soon….
For further information go to www.theblaklaundry.com.au
The Stories We Water (2023) is a relational 'low tea' art event, created by Dominique Chen, Caitlin Franzmann and Libby Harward. The work weaves together three food stories by the three artists, speaking to the cultural and place connections of plants—new and old.
The Stories We Water was suported by Metro Arts.
Photo credit Masimba Sasa.
Bauxide is a ninety-nine page fictionella, co-written by Dominique Chen and Tom Blake, and commissioned by A Published Event as part of the Lost Rocks Literary Project.
Lost Rocks (2017–21) is a speculative library of forty books, four books being published twice yearly over five years. The conceptual heart of this artwork is a discarded rock board, found by the artists at the Glenorchy tip shop in Hobart’s northern suburbs. Forty of its fifty-six Tasmanian rock specimens are missing. Over the next five years, 40 commissioned artists will each select an absence from the incomplete board and re-compose it, not with a geological specimen, but with a ‘fictionella’ – a new kind of novella drawn from lived experience.
The Lost Rocks editions (forty-three in total) have sold over 10,400 copies globally, and are currently held in the collections of The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, US; Artphilein Foundation, Lichtenstein; University of St. Andrews, UK; Tufts University Library, US; and MONA Library, Australia.
Blurb:
Rhubarb by the river makes the aluminium of a pan available for the body. And turns the water orange.
You can purchase the book here.
A panel contribution to a possum skin and ochre cloak, made by Carol McGregor and students from Griffith University's Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art as part of the Tastes Like Sunshine exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane. The cloak conveys Indigenous stories and memories of collecting, hunting and sharing traditional food knowledge and resources.
The work was displayed at the Museum of Brisbane in November 2017.
On the nature of the Familiar explores society’s physical and ideological connection to nature within an urban, domestic context. By taking organic and inorganic waste objects from homes, and re-presenting them with common household scenes, the work seeks to question where ‘nature’ meaningfully resides. For while the natural world is closed off behind doors, curtains and fences, and representations of nature are brought into the home through adornments and motifs, concepts of ‘nature’ are hybridised, abstracted and dislocated from the physical realities of an impacted and disappearing natural environment.
Bonyi: Living Culture is a curated exhibition and public programming by Dominique Chen and Libby Harward. The exhibition brought together past and contemporary bonyi stories, perspectives and relationships, through the creative, cultural works of Indigenous artists Aunty Beverly Hand, BJ Murphy, Jo-Anne Driessens, Shannon Brett, Libby Harward, Dominique Chen and Kieron Anderson, on Country that has hosted the artists’ families and ancestors for celebration and business since time immemorial.
Bonyi-Bonyi/bunya trees have been a foundational part of Aboriginal governance and kinship since time immemorial—connecting and interweaving our far-reaching nations, languages and cultures from across the country, for millennia. ‘Bonyi ‘highways’ still map the landscape, showing the walking paths that brought thousands of our ancestors together for trade, ceremony, marriage, celebration and inter-sovereign politics. The bountiful and nutritious nuts, sustaining both physically and culturally, generations after generations.
Bonyi, like everything in the more-than-human world, is kin. And it is not a coincidence that the same settler colonial violence and destruction that was enacted upon our people was shown also to the land/waters, and to the sacred bonyi. While the destructive pressures on people and environments persist, Bonyi: Living Culture is testimony to the ongoing and regenerative connection of our people to the Bonyi, to our culture, and to each other. It is also an active statement of our uninterrupted sovereignty and ancestral belonging.
Read more in the following vignette by Dominique Chen.
Dom and Sam have worked both independently and together, planning, delivering, project managing and facilitating various youth/art workshops on remote communities across central Australia.
Workshops included multi-media production, song-writing, music recording and assisting with cultural events.
We are slowly working on a learning and sharing space, and native plant library on a little block on land on Yinibarba Country, on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We currently run monthly gatherings to help bring some care and presence back to the land. If you would like to be involved, let us know :)
Bunma-nha, 2022, is a group exhibition features the doctoral works in progress of Gamilaraay artists Dianne Hall, Debbie Taylor-Worley, Warraba Weatherall and Dominique Chen.
Bunma-nha mari-gal bulagaa gamilaraay-dhi, marama-ndaay bula winanga-ndaay, gumaa-li-baa, wuurriyala-y ngiyani. Ngarranma-ndaay nhalay, yana-waa-nha guwiinbarraan, winanga-li ngurrunbaa-gu. Gaay-gal ngami-li ngiyani, dhawun-dhi bula bunma-nha guwaala-y.
Webb Gallery / Queensland College of Art.
Walking Story has worked with not-for-profit organisations to create, facilitate and project manage micro-enterprise initiatives within remote Aboriginal communities across the Katherine and Central Australian regions. These projects involved working collaboratively and meaningfully with communities to development community-driven, grass-roots enterprise initiatives that were able to incorporate and support cultural practices, knowledges, and ways of doing things, while engaging in broader, mainstream economic systems.
A collage commissioned by the Queensland State Archives. The work looks at the varied histories of the site of the Old Windmill, Springhill, that overlooks the Brisbane CBD - from a place of convict punishment, grain grinding, execution, surveying, time-keeping, observation and signalling, radio and telephony research, to tourism. These histories are layered on top of, and were made possible by the displacement of the traditional Aboriginal owners. The work acknowledges the ongoing sovereignty of Aboriginal people in the Brisbane region, and explores the windmill as an expression of colonial advancement, ideologies and relationships to land.
Tjoritja Project is an ongoing collection of moving pictures presented in various forms. After living/working as a Park Ranger in Tjoritja, (West MacDonnell Ranges) Central Australia, Samuel returned with a camera, and spent 6 months feeling, exploring and responding.
Tjoritja Fire 2021 is an open-ended dialogue about fire. In the work, the proximity of the fire moves from close to distant—both for the viewer and for the animals and plants that are intertwined. As the intimacy and intensity varies, the work asks questions of our own feelings and determinations of fire; as a vital and primal life-force, or as a chaotic and destructive spectre. Fire has always been embedded in the Australian landscape—an important contributor to ecosystems, that has shaped plants, animals and human interactions for millennia. Fire will continue to be ever-present. How we understand fire will continue to shape us, and shape country. Fire is an opportunity to reflect and learn, to destroy or reinvigorate. To be exhibited as part of the “All the bees are [not] dying” Exhibition, curated by Peter Breen, Kingaroy Regional Art Gallery, Queensland.
Untitled 2018 is a portrait of desert fire, chronicling the dark nature of this natural phenomenon. Presented at the 2018 Fleurieu Film Festival, South Australia, this experimental video works explores the intimate and immediate relationship between subject and artist. This piece challenges how we perceive fire, and how videographers represent ‘place’ and ‘the wild.’
Treat ‘em Green, Keep ‘em Keen 2009 used multimedia and live music as a platform to communicate messages about the Central Australian environment to the community and public. A feature artist in the 2009 Alice Desert Festival, Samuel projected this footage as part of a live music gig at the Araluen Centre. Furthermore, projected/VJ'd the footage at the opening of the festival at Anzac Oval.
A collaboration with artists Libby Harward, Danni Zuvela and Dominique Chen. Outerspace Gallery (Judith Wright Centre for the Arts), 2023.
Download the exhibition essay here.
Acrylic LED sign, custom-blown glass sculpture, parabolic aluminized reflector, UV light, kefir with laminaria saccharina (sugar kelp) and Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium
bifidum, Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens, UV ink, plastic safety sign on concrete floor, mangrove mud, dried Archontophoenix Cumminghamiana (Bangalow palm) inflorescence, haze, sound, bonyi.
Sign fabricated by Trevor at neondrip Gold Coast.
Opening night music by DJ Vincible. Clean & Green kefir by Currumbin Fermentary.
Samuel has worked as a specialist wildlife cinematographer, as well as a freelance camera operator across a variety of genres, including involvement in numerous projects that reached international, national and local audiences.
As a News and Current Affairs camera operator/editor based in Central Australia he shot and edited over 200 stories for the ABC. Programs include 7PM news, 730 (Stateline), Landline, Lateline, ABC News 24.
Samuel has also worked on programmes for Message Stick, Imparja, Discovery (Animal Planet), corporate clients, community television, art installations, local/State Government, and other platforms.
Awards / Recognition:
Best Cinematography Award - Goanna - Documentary - 2023 Fleurieu Film Festival, South Australia
Gold - Something Akin - Art, Innovation & Specialised Cinematography Category - 2022 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Gold – Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge - Ron Taylor ACM Wildlife Category – 2017 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Best Cinematography (nomination) - Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge - 2018 MRC's South Australian Screen Awards
Master of Science Communication (Natural History Filmmaking) - Dissertation: Life on the Edge: The Survival of Wildlife Cinematography as a Craft - Awarded with Distinction
Silver - Cliff Rescue - Syd Wood ACS Local/Regional News Category, 2014 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
Bronze - Hypocrite - Dan the Underdog - Music Clips Category, 2014 Australian Cinematographers Society Awards
A First Nations developed, written and designed protocols and perspectives resource for growing and gardening on unceded Aboriginal land.
Go to www.growingoncountry.com.au for more details.
Dom and Sam have been individually and collectively involved in various music and sound production projects across Australia and New Zealand.
Original roots/folk/blues/country music and songwriting includes poetic and political responses to the environment, people and societies.
They have performed in various groups including Sami Cha, The Goodtime Family Band, The Human Canvas Project, Tom Cat and the Bluegrass Kittens, Hardgrave and Main (featuring Michael David Thomas) and national and international touring band Timbah. Between them they have performed at festivals including the Woodford Folk Festival, Wide Open Space Festival, Alice Springs Desert Festival, and the Belligen World Music Festival.
In a production space, they have been involved in the creation of albums (Timbah), film scores (Kangaroo Island: Life on the Edge, QUT Short Film Showcase and Psycho the Musical the Documentary), and have managed the live sound production for various bands and events (including the Alice Springs Desert Music Club).
Dom and Sam have also worked in over 30 remote Aboriginal communities recording local music.
In 2012, Walking Story seeded and managed the Alice Springs Desert Music Club (ASDMC) - an incorporated association dedicated to bringing people and communities together through music.
Along with providing professional development, networking and media opportunities for emerging and working artists, producers, sound engineers and venue managers, the ASMDC ran a variety of successful medium to large scale music events.
Dhawun Guwaala-y comes from the Gamilaraay language, meaning earth conversing or having two-way conversation. While peoples’ collective collaborations, conversations and relational connections with Country—with the land, waters, environments, rocks, wind, stars and the enormity of the more-than-human, are always in intrinsic motion, the awareness, value, depth and reciprocity of these conversations may not always be centered.
This exhibition of works by artists from diverse cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, provides an opportunity for pause, reflection and refocus, through the exploration and critique of various ways of perceiving, understanding, connecting and responding to environments over time, and within the contexts of accelerating environmental change.
While diverse in practice, each work speaks to degrees of proximity, emplacement, participation and performativity—implicating both the artist, and viewer, in a collaborative and attentive moment. Dhawun Guwaala-y is a conversation in action. An ongoing sharing and response.
Curated by Dominique and Samuel Chen.
Exhibiting artists: Tom Blake (NSW), Peter Breen (QLD), Dominique Chen (QLD) Samuel Chen (QLD), Libby Harward (QLD), Janine Mackintosh (SA), BJ Murphy (QLD), Darryl Rogers (TAS), Cynthia Schwertsik (SA), Tor Maclean (QLD) and Debbie Taylor-Worley (NSW).
Online exhibition at NEXUS Gallery https://www.nexusartsgallery.com/
