‘WALKING Together – Voice, Treaty, Truth’ is a group exhibition of paintings, sculpture and mixed media works by local artists living on Gumbaynggirr and Dunghutti Country.

Contributors Janet Besançon and Julie Byers live in Coffs, Carol Clarkson is from Sawtell, Jaine Rubine is a Raleigh resident and Lee Albert is from Goolawah, near Crescent Head.

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The works as a collection offer a very personal response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its three elements – Voice, Treaty and Truth.

Showing at the Nambucca Valley Phoenix Gallery in Bowraville High Street, the exhibition opens on February 25.

“It is our way of honouring the Uluru Statement from the Heart,” participating artist Julie Byers told News Of The Area.

“As a group of non-Indigenous female artists living on unceded Gumbaynggirr and Dunghutti Country we accept the gracious invitation given us by First peoples – to walk together for a better future.

“Responding through the power of creativity is our small way of adding our voice toward positive change, acknowledging that this is complex and contested terrain.”

The works in the exhibition draw from the artists’ personal experiences of growing up or emigrating to an Australia that did not see or celebrate itself as home to the oldest living culture on earth, stretching back over 65,000 years.

“It did not understand or accept sovereignty as a spiritual notion, the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’ and First peoples,” Julie said.

“Instead, it sought to silence First peoples, to disempower and subjugate.”

This is the hard truth that drives the artists’ work.

Another exhibition contributor, Janet Besançon shares the inspiration behind her work.

“More than three hundred languages are spoken in Australia, so it is difficult to find one way to put everyone together.

“The only way found was to speak from the hearts to the hearts.

“I speak the heart language and always find other hearts to communicate with.

“It is in this humble and colourful language I show my respect and support to First Nation hearts.”

Julie Byers said the Uluru Statement from the Heart was a motivation to learn more about Australian history and Indigenous culture.

“To be truthful it has taken the Uluru Statement from the Heart for me to go away and educate myself about our shared history and to learn more about First peoples’ ways of knowing and being.

“My work for this exhibition maps this journey, from truth-telling to hope for a fairer, better future.

“I use both language and visual imagery in the medium of ‘analogue’ collage to tell a story and combine experimental printmaking into my work.”

Carol Clarkson is an English born artist who has called Australia her home for the last 40 years.

“Upon my arrival I was totally ignorant of Australia’s colonial history and even more ignorant of the 50-100,000 years of Indigenous history preceding it.

“It has been with a sense of shock and shame that I have learned of some of the past atrocities that have been committed by white Australia against its First Nations people.

“It is with an on-going sense of shame and disgust that I continue to learn of the terrible injustices committed against First Nations people in the present day.

“I whole-heartedly accept the generous invitation, as outlined by First Nations people in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, to accompany them on their journey for a kinder and fairer Australia.

“Let us all walk together and vote ‘yes’ in the upcoming Referendum to support a Voice to Parliament.”

For this body of work, artist Jaine Ruben has focused on seeds, which she believes are “a symbol of growth and new life”.

“I honour the tenacity and potential encapsulated in each one, at a time that requires regeneration on so many levels,” Jaine said.

“With these works I pay my respects to the original custodians of this land, and offer gratitude for the invitation extended through the Uluru Statement from the Heart to join in their walk toward recognition of the right to Voice,
Treaty and Truth.”

Artist Lee Albert took inspiration for her exhibition work from a phrase within the Uluru Statement, which states that ‘sovereignty is a spiritual notion’.

“(The phrase) fixed in my mind as perfectly describing the ancestral tie between the land and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” Lee said.

“Sovereignty was never ceded.

“It can’t be taken by force or written out of history by western arrogance.

“As I have researched and tried to educate myself about our shared dark history, I acknowledge there is a depth of trauma and powerlessness unimaginable to most white Australians.”

By Andrea FERRARI