Arawarra and Cararura

This video was created as part of The Plant Sensibilia Machine, a collaboration between Rebecca Mayo, Deidre Martin and Jacob Morris as part of Siteworks 2022 at Bundanon.

In this film Jacob Morris reads his poem Arawarra and Cararura. It is a poem about place and the stories that weave through and form the bedrock of Country. And it is a story about a man determined to protect Country and the majestic Cararura (Toona ciliata – Red Cedar) which used to grow abundantly up and down this coast. 

The poem is screen printed with metal salts onto a length of linen. The cloth winds through the dyebath slowly revealing Jacob’s poem along with pixelated images of Cararura leaves. Heated in the dyebath is Native Cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis). Jacob chose this plant to use as dye because it is a healing plant, used for smoking ceremonies, welcoming strangers to Country. A member of the sandalwood family, it is hemiparasitic via its roots. Reliant on other trees in the early stages of its life, until photosynthesis is established, the Cherry Ballart is a clear reminder of the connections and inter-dependencies between plants. This connection between all life, human and non-human is revealed in Jacob’s poem, which seeks to bring our attention to the little-known story of the man Arawarra. 

The mass clearing of species such as Toona ciliata has inevitably changed the nature of climate on Country today.

Rebecca Mayo
Poem by Jacob Morris
Video by Sammy Hawker

Rebecca Mayo

Rebecca Mayo lectures at the School of Art & Design, ANU. Her practice examines how an art practice built around process, repetition and labour can produce artworks that manifest through—and reveal—practices of care. She uses site- and species-specific plant-dye to make visible the interdependence between plants and people, and the resulting relations of reciprocal care. Habitus (Heide Museum of Modern Art) and It’s in the bag (Caves, Melbourne) contributed to Climarte’s Art+Climate=Change Festival in 2017 and 2019. Her work A cure for plant blindness, was exhibited at CLIMATE CARE: Reimagining Shared Planetary Futures, at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), during the Vienna Biennale for Change, 2021.  

Jacob Morris

Jacob Morris is a Gumea-Dharrawal Ngundah of the Yuin Murring from the Southeast Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Jacob's great grandmother Lena Chapman was one of the last Dharrawal speakers from the South Coast. She kept language alive within her family. Warren Morris, Jacob's Uncle and mentor handed down the responsibility of language to he and his cousin Joel Deaves. Jacob also teaches language and dance at Nowra East Public School.

The Tellus Art Project 2022 is a collaboration between UNSW Art and Design, the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens Herbarium, Bundanon and Open Humanities Press.

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Bundanon’s annual presentation of environmental research projects and public programs has a decade-long history.  In 2022, Siteworks is presenting a family of projects that draw on climate research, critical thinking through contemporary art, creative digital spaces, and Indigenous knowledge and technologies.

The starting point for Siteworks 2022 is the concept of the weather report, borrowed to map both environmental and emotional spaces, and chronicle internal and external landscapes. This expansive program includes a new exhibition, outdoor installations, a laboratorium space for workshops and performances, as well as talks and events over weekends throughout the season. Siteworks 2022 posits the artist as a kind of weather balloon, capturing a collection of reports on our place and our time.

Commissioned by Bundanon; part of the weather station in Bundanon, NSW, Australia - find out more here.