Wild Country

<p dir="ltr">Background: This project utilised performative fieldwork, narrative non-fiction writing, participatory arts practice and State Library archival images to research the tension between visual and settler-community representation of the Ovens River and its watershed and settler-colonial histories of ecological devastation coursed by alluvial mining, sluicing and dredging, agricultural runoff, introduced species and climate change. It is believed that the water flowing through the Ovens River is the same water that has always been on Earth, arriving four and a half billion years ago as the solar system formed. Therefore, the water of the Ovens has moved through the capillaries of plants, nurtured new life in wombs, leisurely advanced through underground aquifers and lapped against tall ships, canoes and bulk carriers. In its molecular architecture, water records pasts we may not be able to see or that have been actively erased through settler-Australian visual culture. Therefore, this project utilised creative practice to think with the river, creating a critical discourse about the River’s hidden past and possible futures. </p><p dir="ltr">Contribution: The history and ecological history of the Ovens River appears across many different texts. This research brought these distributed histories and research together for the first time in conversation with contributions from the local community, including Traditional Custodians, to paint a dynamic and detailed portrait of the river. </p><p dir="ltr">Significance: This project was reviewed by the local press and included on the Print Council of Australia’s Imprint Blog. It was peer-reviewed and included in Project Anywhere: Art at the Outmost Limits of Location Specificity Global Exhibition Program in 2022. It was exhibited at Wangaratta Regional Gallery in 2024 and The Dock Gallery in the Docklands in 2025. The 2024 exhibition at Wangaratta Gallery included public programming, including a Seniors Week event and a public talk attended by the community and Dr Helen Haines MP.</p>