Our building artwork
‘Our cultural expression through art is an act of reclamation of cultural practices. The knowledge imbued within asserts our invincible spirit, unbroken connections, and invites others to share in the belonging of the myriad of connections we exist in and create’.
Belinda Briggs, Yorta Yorta/ Wemba Wemba, Kaiela Arts Indigenous Lead Munarra Artwork Commissions
Phase 1: L-R – Danica Miller, Stewart Russell, Suzanne Atkinson, Belinda Briggs, Glenny Briggs, Norm Stewart, Lyn Thorpe.
Phase 2: ASHE students and young RFNC members with Elders and the Munarra Artwork Commissions team. Photo by James Henry.
Kaiela Arts Project
In 2023 Kaiela Arts was commissioned by Munarra Ltd to work alongside artists and community, together with Spacecraft Studio, Arm Architects and landscape architects Bush Projects, to develop artwork for the new Munarra Centre for Regional Excellence building and landscape.
Kaiela Arts’ Indigenous Leads, Belinda Briggs and Lyn Thorpe, brought together their connections, stories and knowledge of past, present and future, to facilitate creative developments, artworks and designs, capturing the meaning and purpose of Munarra as a place to uphold our values and celebrate who we are.
The project was delivered in two phases:
Phase 1: artists selected
The first being to develop artworks for the building cladding elements and screening elements for central courtyard in May 2023.
Yorta Yorta artists Glennys Briggs, Norm Stewart and Suzanne Atkinson were selected to develop narrative responses to each space and element through a conversational process.
Their artwork wrapping around the Munarra building, represents a diversity of Yorta Yorta family groups, and reflects the strength and versatility of their individual creative styles across different media.
Phase 2: Munarra Gunyah – thunder camp workshops
Our Munarra Gunyah (Thunder camps/home) workshops created a space that, just like in a home or camp, everyone has a role to play- everyone contributes. Immersed in the hallowed Rumba social rooms, a group formed of young people and elder artists shared two days of connection and making. Through the experience of smoking ceremony, conversations around the table, items that held story within the pages of old books, artefacts and the plants they collected, everyone had the opportunity to create with several styles of printing.
Kaiela Arts Munarra project >
Munarra Centre artwork
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Ceremony - Aunty Glennys Briggs
Aunty Glennys’ work spanning the front entrance informs us that ceremony, knowledge and spirit is here - personal belongings of a bull roarer signals ceremony of man, the string bag a vessel for holding tools, a day’s forage or maybe it’s holding learned and lived knowledge.
About Aunty Glennys Briggs
Glennys is a proud Taungurong woman, of the Briggs/Walsh families. Her works are in public and private collections including Home Of The Artist (HOTA), Redland Art Gallery, University of Queensland, Shandong University, USA and Hong Kong. She has a Bachelor of Art, Contemporary Indigenous Art, majoring in print media, from Queensland College of Art, Griffiths University. Glennys has a focus on painting, sculpture, installation and sound, wearable art and possum skin cloak making, with her main focus on printmaking. You can find out more here
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Bull Ants art - Suzanne Atkinson
Suzanne's Bull Ants speak to might of an individual but also the strength in numbers, the resilience to endure, determination to overcome and an invincible spirit.
About Suzanne Atkinson
Suzanne is a proud Yorta Yorta woman, of the Nicholson/Cooper families. Her art mediums are weaving, ceramics, painting, poetry and wood burning. In 2015 she gained a bachelor’s degree of Contemporary Arts/Visual Arts from Deakin University and is currently enrolled in Certificate 3, Visual Arts Centre for Koorie Education at GOTAFE, Shepparton. Exhibitions include: ‘Imperfectly Perfect’, solo exhibition at Kaiela Arts; ‘Ant’, Shepparton Art Museum, ‘Piinpi’, Darwin Fashion show.
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Blow Hole - Uncle Norm Stewart
On the east and west ends of the building, Uncle Norm’s depiction of the Blowhole in Tocumwal, acts as a portal to another world, drawing us in and reminds us of the stories steeped into the land and Dungala that we must be maintain curiosity for and continue familiarise us ourselves with. Rising up through the centre like the sun, Uncle Norm’s distinct markings in his work Three Rivers (Dungala, Kaiela and Yakoa or Murray, Goulburn and Campaspe) draws our eyes skyward to the heavens, inviting respect for our waterways, the life they and the sun give us and our Ancestors too.
About Uncle Norm Stewart
Norm is a proud Yorta Yorta and Wurundjeri man of the Morgan/McRae families. His mediums are clay, wood carvings, and acrylic and watercolor paintings. ‘My style can be a bit vast at times and quite vivid, at first I began painting in the Aboriginal style then attempted portraiture and landscape paintings. This then encouraged me to broaden my knowledge of the Arts.’ In 2013 Norm enrolled at Deakin University for a 3-year Visual Art Degree.