In Visible Ink - Episode 4: Lines of Sight, imagining local landscapes differently through multimedia storytelling (2021)

MFTWA

In Visible Ink is a Museum of Freedom and Tolerance endeavour that makes visible the invisible. Through sharing and amplifying stories, histories, art, conversations and projects that inspire people to see differently, it aims to make changes towards a more just world. Find out more here.

Day 3 of In Visible Ink 2021 was an all Indigenous program of tours, talks and workshops. We convened this rich conversation around how local creatives are using the arts in innovative ways to reveal and bring back to life hidden and erased landscapes in Perth. The three artistic works featured across this discussion were Galup, That Was My Home and Always Wadjemup.

Our speakers in this session included (speaker bios below):

• Ian Wilkes
• Poppy van Oorde-Grainger
• Samara King
• Dr Denise Cook
• Lynnette Coomer

Ian Wilkes is a Noongar theatre-maker, dancer and performer. He has directed several plays including Yirra Yaakin’s Boodjar Kaatijin and Songbird and performed numerous lead roles including in Yirra Yaakin’s Hecate and Ochre’s Kwongan for Perth Festival, CO3’s The Line at State Theatre WA and Honey Spot at the Sydney Opera House. Ian is also a founding facilitator of Culture 2.0, Yirra Yaakin’s regional youth engagement program. Ian is currently a writer and performer of on-country interactive performance Galup about the history of Lake Monger in Perth which includes an oral history from Elder Doolann Leisha Eatts about a massacre at the lake and was originally commissioned by International Art Space as part of the Know Thy Neighbour #2 program. Ian is also writer and director of the upcoming VR work of Galup.

Poppy van Oorde-Grainger is a filmmaker, artist and producer. Her work has been broadcast widely and presented at international festivals and galleries. Poppy first gained national recognition as the winner of the Fremantle Print Award and then later the Australia Council Kirk Robson Award for leadership in Community Arts and Cultural Development. Poppy was a director and producer on Burdiya Mob and Ngaluk Waangkiny projects and Beyond Empathy’s Excursions project. Poppy is currently a director, writer and producer of the on-country immersive theatre performance and VR work Galup and is director of not-for-profit production company Same Drum.

Samara King is a Karajarri woman from Broome, Western Australia. She was part of the 2020 Emerging Curator program between Rottnest Island Authority and WA Museum and is the co-curator of Always Wadjemup; a multimedia digital exhibition that reflects the experience of working on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island).

Denise Cook is an historian, oral historian and museum curator with over 30 years’ experience. She is the author of That Was My Home, which explores the hidden histories of the Noongar camps along the Swan River. Denise has documented the voices of Noongar people, juxtaposed with information from the archives, photographs and stories from others in the community. She specialises in WA history, particularly local and Noongar history, as well as protocols for non-Aboriginal people working in the Noongar community. That Was My Home explores the hidden histories of the Noongar camps around Fremantle, Swanbourne and Shenton Park in the suburbs of Perth along the Swan River and was lead by Dr Denise Cook and Lynnette Coomer.

Lynnette Coomer is a Noongar woman who lived in the Shenton Park camps in the 1950s with her parents, grandmother and siblings. Later she, and the next youngest children, were taken to Roelands Mission.