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.