Seeds & Sovereignty: Message and Meaning

Installation view ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’, GOMA 2024

Installation view ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’, GOMA 2024 / View full image

Over countless generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples developed an intricate understanding of their Country’s unique environments and ideal ecological balance. Intertwined within cultural knowledge and ceremonial practice, this insight into nature is embedded into societal systems wherein totemic relationships of responsibility to flora and fauna ensure ongoing land management and sustainability.

‘Message and Meaning’ is the last of four blogs that celebrate the interconnected relationships between plants, people and Country.

Christian Thompson Black Gum 2 2008

Christian Thompson, Bidjara people, Australia/United Kingdom b.1978 / Black Gum 2 (from ‘Australian Graffiti’ series) 2008 / Type C photograph on paper / 108 x 110cm / Purchased 2008. The QAG Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Christian Thompson

Christian Thompson, Bidjara people, Australia/United Kingdom b.1978 / Black Gum 2 (from ‘Australian Graffiti’ series) 2008 / Type C photograph on paper / 108 x 110cm / Purchased 2008. The QAG Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Christian Thompson / View full image

Message and Meaning

Plant imagery is often employed by artists as a symbolic device to convey complex layers of meanings in their works. Christian Thompson combines callistemon blossoms and a black hoodie in his 2008 ‘Australian Graffiti’ series of self-portraits titled Black Gum 1–3 (illustrated) to comment on high rates of Indigenous Australians in incarceration, the destruction of sacred land, and the ideology that correlates Aboriginal peoples with flora and fauna. Badtjala artist Fiona Foley (illustrated) uses poppy imagery in her continued artistic commentary of Queensland’s Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 examining connections between addiction, control, assimilation and exploitation.

Fiona Foley Sacred lotus lily 2003

Fiona Foley, Badtjala people, Wondunna clan, K’gari (Fraser Island), Australia b.1964 / Sacred lotus lily 2003 / Bronze / 55.2 x 6.3 x 6.3cm (irreg.) / Gift of Andrew Clouston through the QAGOMA Foundation 2021. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Fiona Foley/Copyright Agency

Fiona Foley, Badtjala people, Wondunna clan, K’gari (Fraser Island), Australia b.1964 / Sacred lotus lily 2003 / Bronze / 55.2 x 6.3 x 6.3cm (irreg.) / Gift of Andrew Clouston through the QAGOMA Foundation 2021. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Fiona Foley/Copyright Agency / View full image

Brian Robinson & Tamika Grant-Iramu Carving Country 2019-21

Brian Robinson, Maluyligal, Wuthathi and Dayak people, Australia b.1973 / Tamika Grant-Iramu / Carving Country 2019-2021 / Vinyl-cut on Arches BFK Rives 300gsm and Hahnemuhle Hellweiss 350gsm alpha-cotton paper mounted on aluminium / Thirty-seven panels: 280 x 670cm (overall) (irreg.) / Purchased 2023 with funds raised through the QAGOMA Foundation Appeal / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Brian Robinson & Tamika Grant-Iramu / Photograph: J Ruckli © QAGOMA

Brian Robinson, Maluyligal, Wuthathi and Dayak people, Australia b.1973 / Tamika Grant-Iramu / Carving Country 2019-2021 / Vinyl-cut on Arches BFK Rives 300gsm and Hahnemuhle Hellweiss 350gsm alpha-cotton paper mounted on aluminium / Thirty-seven panels: 280 x 670cm (overall) (irreg.) / Purchased 2023 with funds raised through the QAGOMA Foundation Appeal / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Brian Robinson & Tamika Grant-Iramu / Photograph: J Ruckli © QAGOMA / View full image

Brian Robinson and Tamika Grant-Iramu’s collaborative Carving Country 2019–21 (illustrated) depicts an iconic jacaranda tree swarming with diverse motifs of Zendath Kes (Torres Strait Islands) heritage and culture alongside pop culture symbols, that speak simultaneously to culture, consumerism, place and identity. Naomi Hobson’s photographic series ‘A Warrior without a Weapon’ 2018 (illustrated) is an ode to self-determination and agency in representation of Aboriginal men in mainstream media. Their native flower adornments signify prosperity, life and beauty, and referentially acknowledge local Coen stories and legendary figures.

Naomi Hobson A Warrior without a Weapon 10 (Little Kings) 2018

Naomi Hobson, Kaantju/Umpila people, Australia b.1978 / A Warrior without a Weapon 10 (Little Kings) 2018 / Digital photographic print on paper / 90.3 x 89.2cm (comp.) / Purchased 2019 with funds from the Future Collective through the QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Naomi Hobson

Naomi Hobson, Kaantju/Umpila people, Australia b.1978 / A Warrior without a Weapon 10 (Little Kings) 2018 / Digital photographic print on paper / 90.3 x 89.2cm (comp.) / Purchased 2019 with funds from the Future Collective through the QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Naomi Hobson / View full image

Libby Harward’s site-specific installation Ngali Gabili (We Tell) (illustrated) presents living plant specimens enclosed in glass vessels that explores biopiracy and the Eurocentric institutional classification and cultural acquisition of native flora. Early botanists and naturalists were essential in the business of colonisation and are still credited with botanical discoveries ‘completely erasing many millennia of Indigenous peoples’ expert knowledge, custodianship, stewardship and innovation related to plants.[1]

Libby Harward Ngali Gabili (We Tell) 2024

Libby Harward, Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Moreton Island), Australia b.1976 Ngali Gabili (We Tell) 2024, installed for ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’, GOMA, March 2024 / Living plants, soil, glass terrarium and digital sound file / © Libby Harward / Courtesy: Libby Harward / Photograph: C Sanders © QAGOMA

Libby Harward, Ngugi people of Mulgumpin (Moreton Island), Australia b.1976 Ngali Gabili (We Tell) 2024, installed for ‘Seeds and Sovereignty’, GOMA, March 2024 / Living plants, soil, glass terrarium and digital sound file / © Libby Harward / Courtesy: Libby Harward / Photograph: C Sanders © QAGOMA / View full image

Native plants provide nourishment, healing, and the raw materials to create functional and ceremonial objects, shelter, and tools for hunting. Their seasonal occurrence has tremendous ecological and theological importance in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. The lessons embedded in cultural stories, ceremony, art, dance and Songlines — refined over millennia of caring for Country — contain critical information about the collection and use of natural resources that ensures safe consumption and plentiful harvests for future generations.

Sophia Nampitjimpa Sambono (Jingili) is Associate Curator, Indigenous Australian Art, QAGOMA

This text is adapted from an essay first published in QAGOMA’s Members’ magazine, Artlines

Seeds and Sovereignty
2 March – 18 August 2024
Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)

Endnotes

  1. ^ See Zena Cumpston, Michael-Shawn Fletcher and Lesley Head, Plants: Past, Present and Future, Thames & Hudson Australia, Vic., 2022, p.37.

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