Lurujarri Dreaming Trail

BACKGROUND: This outlines the relationships between the traditional knowledge of the Goolarabaloo people of the west Kimberley and contemporary landscape knowledge, exploring a developing body of research in which landscape, as a constructed idea, separates us from our environment – with often drastic consequences for our world. The landscape architecture discipline at RMIT has a longstanding relationship with the Goolarabaloo people with students and staff joining the annual Lurujarri Dreaming Trail with this providing the context for the essay. CONTRIBUTION: The essay makes contributions and generates new knowledge on several levels. In the essay, landscape is explored through the condition of water and advances the argument that landscape practice might be enriched by moving away from the notion that as practitioners we are somehow at a remove from it as a medium – further explored through the notion of walking as a means through which to read landscape. Further to this, the essay posits that consideration of water (as both a seasonal condition and as an ephemeral landscape element) through an Aboriginal understanding provides a means through which to move away from homogenising impulses of practice. The particularities of water provide insight into notions of place. SIGNIFICANCE: Landscape Australia is the pre-eminent quarterly journal addressing issues of national significance through landscape endorsed by the AIA, PIA and AILDM. Articles are archived in major databases including Informit Australian Public Affairs Full Text and the journal is listed in Ulrichs Global Serials Directory. Emily Wong, the editor of Landscape Australia journal, commissioned Jock Gilbert and Daniel Roe to write this work. The essay was also published online.