mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson

HOMELANDS The Waanyi homelands stretch from the Northern Territory– Queensland border in the west, across Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, to include the small township of Gregory (formerly Gregory Downs) in the east. Major waterways — Cliffdale Creek, Nicholson River, Lawn Hill Creek and the Gregory River — crisscross this territory whose southern border follows the bends of the O'Shannassy River. 2 Sites of significance on Waanyi Country are Lawn Hill Station and Riversleigh Station, two pastoral stations that became the 'workplace' for many Aboriginal people in the area. 3 These sites are of major significance to Watson's matrilineal family; they are complicated places where massacres occurred and Aboriginal women were enslaved in servitude. Beneath the land, springs connect these waterways to the Great Artesian Basin, spanning one fifth of the whole continent. 4 Significantly, the flow of water is often referenced by Watson in connecting her ancestral homelands to her current home in Brisbane. Boodjamulla Lawn Hill Gorge is a place Watson and her family have returned to over the years, and she has fond memories of fishing there with her grandmother Grace. In 2003 Lawn Hill Gorge National Park was renamed Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park after its ancestral creator, Boodjamulla — the Rainbow Serpent. As recorded by anthropologist and archaeologist Paul SC Taçon: Boodjamulla is described by [Waanyi Joongai Arthur Petersen] as 'great big one', 'like a big catfish', and 'brown like a fish'. The entire Lawn Hill Gorge area is collectively referred to as Mumbaleeya, or Rainbow Serpent country. No waterholes or permanent water are believed to have existed in the area before the coming of Boodjamulla. He created Lawn Hill's deep gorge holes and now keeps them full of water to keep his body wet; if he ever leaves, the waterholes will dry up. 5 This interconnectedness of the land and its waterways is monumental and ever-present in Watson's work. a black and white history of queensland according to the artist 1–10 (detail) 2007 GROWING UP IN THE 'BURBS Watson was born in 1959, before she could be counted in the Australian census, the daughter of Waanyi woman Joyce Watson (née Isaacson) and Scottish, English and Irish father Don Watson. 6 Judy spent her adolescence in conservative Queensland under the rule of then-Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. 7 In the early 1960s, a young Judy, her parents and three siblings moved from her birthplace of Mundubbera — a country town on the banks of the Burnett River, near Gympie — to Acacia Ridge, a suburb of Brisbane. Watson remembers the suburb possessing an air of disenfranchisement, especially compared to more affluent areas of the city. It was a time when racism was overt and police brutality institutionalised and visible. Watson remembers both, and the deep hurt that she felt on behalf of her family and community, who were targeted. Even though she grew up distanced from her mother's family — who lived in the mining town of Mount Isa, the closest major town to their Waanyi homelands — the family unit would make the trip back to Country, and across the border into the Northern Territory, to visit family working on cattle stations. Mum, dad and the four kids would pile into their old Holden sedan for the long, hot trips. Over the 1800-kilometre journey, across mostly dirt roads, the family would pull over and camp on the side of the road. Watson recalls that on one overnight roadside stop, her father was startled by a tall dark silhouette in the night. What he thought was a man standing over him was actually a towering termite mound in the shadow of the moon. These visceral memories played a part in Watson's later compositions and explorations of ambiguous forms, especially her walama 2000 series of bronze sculptures that reference the shape of termite mounds, dillybags and other vessels or receptacles. This tale of long drives is a fond and common one among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. The reality is that the ability to stay on homelands after the violent frontier wars was a rarity, especially after the establishment of 'The Act' — the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 — which forcibly removed Indigenous people from land and placed them on Government– or Church–controlled missions and reserves in an aim to obliterate culture. Judy's family did not escape this surveillance. Stories of visiting grandmother Grace's house in Mount Isa feature in Watson's video works, including grace 2006. The names of cattle stations and people were ingrained into Watson's psyche from those times. Even if she hadn't yet visited those places, these stories of where the family lived and worked became a source of connection and contemplation for Watson in years to come. Judy, Lisa and Margy Watson at Mount Isa rodeo 1971 Gregory River Crossing 1990 Judy Watson (second from left) age 12 or 13, Super 8 film footage, Waite River Station summer c.1974 Don Watson Senior, Grace and Alf Isaacson, Acacia Ridge 1970s Boodjamulla Lawn Hill Gorge is a place where Watson and her family have returned to over the years, and she has fond memories of fishing there with her grandmother Grace. 39 38