BIRRUNGA WIRADYURI
Bageraygan Dabaamalang

122 x 183cm

This piece speaks to the continual ancient practises of gathering to do business with neighbouring and further removed, diverse language groups.

These practises maintain long, healthy relationships based on commonality of shared values, mutual respect, and clear communication, trading of news, views, goods, and healthy rapport around managing disputes.

These practises were challenged by the policies of governments that saw First Nations Peoples removed from their lands and placed in forced cohabitation based concentration camps called missions.

These government policies were enacted in order to make way for colonists claim land on which to farm.

Part of this process was to legally empower colonists to kill First Nations Peoples in order to clear the land for cultivation or grazing, without resistance, in much the same manner as they removed trees or rocks to make way for agriculture.