Buubaan Butherun - Water Stories

Community Cultural event [with projections]

Buubaan Butherun, an event run by Jagun Alliance, an Aboriginal led land management organisation, highlighted the cultural connections of Bundjalung peoples across the whole landscape through Lore, language, and kinship, recognising that Bundjalung and other Aboriginal communities have lived along the banks of the Northern Rivers for millennia and hold deep kinship and knowledge of the importance of cultural values and practices to inform water quality monitoring and flood recovery activities.

The aim of the project was to provide Cultural assessments of waterway recovery within the Richmond River Catchment following the 2022 floods. It posed the questions: How do we measure water quality and river health through a Cultural Lens? What are the indicators of this? How would the Old People measure this? [Text from Final Report on Guung Butherin by Jagun Alliance. Full report can be found on the Jagun Alliance website. ]

For this event I was invited as a projection artist to collaborate with Mitch King [Widjabul Wiabul/ Yaegl man] of Flow Projects and Jagun Alliance to help organise and promote this cultural/environmental event to mark the flood anniversary and contribute some video stories.

One of these was a short film made with Widjabul Wia-bul Elder, Aunty Thelma James about her connection to the river which was shown on an outdoor screen that the children danced in front of, it was a memorable moment, creating a playful live art experience.

I also created a visual montage of rivers and local country set to music and also projected onto special “Grandfather and Grandmother” trees the faces of some “Old People” from Bundjalung Country connected to Aunty Thelma James’ story. On other trees, I projected a series of endangered endemic species, including frogs, fish and insects. These served as an atmospheric backdrop to the Cultural dances and performance pieces outside. Finally, there was a yarning circle with the projections in the surrounding trees creating a poignant connection to the topics being discussed, that of honouring the importance of kinship and natural lore.