In Atmos magazine, religion and ecology scholar Mary Evelyn Tucker says: “To end the era of hyper individualism, we will need new ways to reform, reshape, and reinvent community…”
The central assemblages of abandoned ironing boards, hessian bags, and community donated non-native plants in Entangled: Bulanaming highlight the similarities between the extraction of value from people and the environment for the benefit of colonial and capitalist expansion. The installation juxtaposes these living sculptures with a lumen print and soundscape produced in the largest surviving reserve of Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, the Ecological Community which once dominated the Sydney basin, including the area of Bulanaming/Marrickville where the artist lives and tends.
Watters undertakes expansive reading across land art, biodiversity, and participatory practice. In Entangled: Bulanaming she combines this with a real-world research practice of growing, planting, listening to, and learning about native ecology to grapple with questions like: “what are my responsibilities in caring for, healing, and tending this land as a white woman whose ancestors are settler/colonisers?” This key question is asked with deep respect for First Nations’ knowledges and relationships to Country, thank you Aunty Deb Lennis and Juundaal Strang-Yettica for sharing yours.
Entangled: Bulanaming exists beyond the gallery. See the project expand and evolve: https://www.shelleywatters.com/entangledbulanaming
