Media Alert
20 May 2015
Impart: communicate – inform – tell – convey – report – teach –
instruct- divulge – disclose – reveal – expose – pass on…
Traditional Indigenous cultural practices will be given new life by Contemporary Indigenous artists in the
exhibition Impart at the Incinerator Gallery, Moonee Ponds from 5 June.
The exhibition will bring together three established artists from South-eastern Australia whose collective
wisdom spans over 150 years. Each artist reclaims and revitalises once forgotten cultural practices,
traditions and art techniques.
The exhibition is guest curated and features work by highly respected multidisciplinary artist Maree
Clarke, a Mutti Mutti, Yorta Yorta and BoonWurrung woman from Northwest Victoria. It seeks to
reeducate and impart the wisdom of the artists’ ancestors and elders.
The exhibition will also include works by Vicki Couzens, a Gunditjmara and Keerray Woorroong woman
and Vicki West a Trawlwoolway woman.
Multimedia installations by Maree Clarke will include photography, painting and sculpture, reflecting her
painstaking research into the revival of elements of her Indigenous culture, which explore the mourning
rituals and ceremonies of her ancestors.
Her work is internationally lauded and has been exhibited at Melbourne Museum and National Gallery
of Victoria. She was also Senior Curator at the Koorie Heritage Trust.
The works by Vicki Couzens will include a possum skin cloak as well as installations and written words to
impart her continuing message; “to care for Country, to look after the environment, to care for our fellow
creatures, to keep balance and harmony.”
Couzens played a pivotal role in reclaiming the possum skin cloak into contemporary indigenous Southeastern Australian culture, with only five historical cloaks known to exist worldwide.
Vicki West’s works will include large-scale kalikina (bull kelp) installations accompanied by smaller
sculptural works, jewellery, textiles, paintings and new media. West’s work draws on traditional
Tasmanian Aboriginal cultural practices and materials to celebrate cultural survival in the face of
continuing colonial myths of the extinction of her people.
Her new work includes a striking large netted symbolic kelp water carrier which plays with shadow and
light, suggesting ideas of hidden histories and submerged memories.
The exhibition opening coincides with NAIDOC Week, which the 2015 theme highlights Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people’s strong spiritual connection to land and sea.
Exhibition details
Impart: communicate – inform – tell – convey – report – teach – instruct- divulge – disclose – reveal –
expose – pass on…
Vicki Couzens, Vicki West, Maree Clarke
Opening: Friday, 5 June from 6pm-8pm
Exhibition dates: 5 June to 26 July
Public Programs
Bush Dreaming and Artefact making
Friday 3 and Saturday 4 July, 10 am – 12pm and 1pm – 3pm
Give children an understanding of the culture, rituals and stories of Australia’s first people. Includes a
guided tour of the Impart exhibition and the making of busy toys and sculptures from traditional
materials.
Kopi Healing
Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 June 10am – 4pm
Maree Clarke, a Koorie woman from the Murray River, will lead a Koping Healing workshop. The
workshop will explore a traditional mourning process of creating clay headwear (Kopi) to support a
deepened understanding of Aboriginal mourning traditions.
Curator Talk: Maree Clarke
Saturday 4 July 1pm
-endsMedia Contact
Rebecca van Essen
Arts and Culture
City of Moonee Valley
+61 3 9243 9115 | rvanessen@mvcc.vic.gov.au