ngurrak-al marram-u / body of the mountain (2025)
Artists: Aarti Jadu, Rebecca Murray, Mandy Nicholson, Jill Orr, Gülsen Özer, Laki Sideris, Gretel Taylor, Tammy Wong Hulbert
Curated by Gretel Taylor with Gülsen Özer and Mandy Nicholson
Sat 24 May - Sun 13 July 2025 | Burrinja Gallery
Walking together across Corhanwarrabul (the Dandenong Ranges), we shared artistic approaches and considered what it means to ‘listen to Country’ from our different perspectives. We traced the mountain range’s gradients and gullies through shifting light and temperature, absorbed its changing atmospheres, and observed the life within its folds. Some of us joined in the dance of its movements and textures and sung from and to the mountain. Others gathered literal and poetic impressions.
We began to feel our bodies in a continuum with the body of the mountain.
ngurrak-al marram-u / body of the mountain is an outcome of mobile residency, On Country, In Residence, a creative exchange of place-responsive practices along the route of ngurrak barring public art and cultural trail. The artists’ responses gesture to traditions of walking as art, eco-performance as activism, and socially engaged practice. They draw upon close-range experiential encounters with the forest, as well as reflecting upon global contexts from the perspective of the mountain. The exhibition advocates for intercultural and interspecies dialogue – especially listening through all our senses - in an era of escalating precarity.
Perhaps it offers possibilities for human and more-than-human ways of relating that you have not thought of before?
Exhibition Opening | Sat 24 May 3pm-5pm
The opening of ngurrak-al marram-u / body of the mountain featured performances by Jill Orr and Djirri Djirri dancers and a Welcome to Country by Wurundjeri Custodian Stacie Piper.
Wurundjeri Custodian and artist Dr Mandy Nicholson gave the exhibition its Woiwurrung title.
Public program
Cyanotype Workshop for young people facilitated by Rebecca Murray | Sat 7 Jun
'Biik Ngarrga' - Wurundjeri Dance Workshop for all ages led by Djirri Djirri | Wed 9 Jul
Place-responsive Art and Performance Now: an international panel discussion | Thu 12 Jun
Hosted by Contemporary Art and Social Transformation (CAST), RMIT.
Panellists: Professor Vicky Hunter (UK), Arahmaiani (Indonesia), Dr Jill Orr, Rheannan Port .
Chaired by Dr Gretel Taylor and introduced by Dr Tammy Wong Hulbert
Watch the recording here.
ngurrak-al marram-u / body of the mountain was supported by Yarra Ranges Council and ngurrak barring, and assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
