Accumulation and accretion: walking, listening and learning waterways

Installation in the foyer of the National Museum of Australia in conjunction with the Waterways Country Symposium 2022.

Materials: rusty objects, coffee cups and other found items collected from waterways on Arrernte country in the Northern Territory, and Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Yuin Country in the ACT and NSW. Recordings of frog songs collected on Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Yuin country.

Visitors were invited to contribute to the installation by creating drawings inspired by water life on the materials scattered across the marble museum floor.

This collaboration with the wonderful Amanda Stuart grew from our participation in the Sullivans Trail project initiated by community artist Nicola Lambert and developed in close collaboration with Ngunnawal community members Uncle Wally Bell and Aunty Karen Denny.

Amanda and I were part of a group of artists, scientists, teachers and researchers observing and responding to the diverse life-forms and materials that form the ecosystems of Sullivans creek. Over several months in 2021-22 we undertook a series of walks following the creek from its headwaters to its confluence with the Molonglo river in Lake Burley Griffin.

We became interested in the interactions between materials considered to be rubbish with the complex life that forms the waterways.

In April 2022 I moved to Mparntwe/Alice Springs on Arrernte Country. This move gave me the opportunity to experience a place where the rivers and creeks are dry for most of the year, occasionally filling and flooding. Amanda had lived for many years in Canberra on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, and had recently moved to Yuin country and was spending time learning the rhythms of the hills, valleys and waterways of her new home environment. Our conversations often took place on the phone in early mornings while we were out walking our dogs 2500kms apart.

The interactions and impacts of humans in these environments are visible in the food containers, coffee cups and rusty tins that litter both the desert creek beds of Mparntwe and the Kambri/Sullivans Creek.