Ange Jeffery
Gudha Yumbalgarra
Year: 2021
Medium: Willow, Hemp, Mussel Shell
Child's Play
Gudha Yumbalgarra means child playing. These are examples of two kinds of body adornments I would make over the summer at Wambuul (the Macquarie River) for fun, all of us young ones would do this. As I got older, I learnt how terrible the environmental impact the willow tree has on our waterways. But this tree is very important to me, it is a part of my life and has a cultural significance to me. I learnt to swim hanging into the weeping willow, my great Aunty would take branches home and put them in drums full of water and later plant once the roots had developed for shade around the house. We had many gatherings under those trees in her front yard in the hot summers. Sometimes my cousin would hose the weeping branches with water to cool us down. This tree is one of the many plants that colonisers brought to our Countries that are not suited and have created devastating environmental impacts, but I still enjoy weaving with it…….
