mudunama kundana wandaraba jarribirri: Judy Watson

NOTES 1 I use the terms 'Turtle Island' and 'Great Ocean' to signal conceptions of place shared across Indigenous cultures and articulated in English. 'Turtle Island' is the name many Algonquian- and Iroquoian-speaking peoples use to refer to the continent of North America, and stems from their creation stories. Similarly, 'Great Ocean' draws attention to Indigenous language concepts that predate the naming of the Pacific Ocean by Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães in 1521. This includes, for example, 'Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa', the Te Reo Māori (Māori language) name for the Great Ocean of Kiwa. 2 That project was initiated by Léuli Eshrāghi, with IMA co-directors Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh. Alongside Eshrāghi, the other Visiting Curators were Sarah Biscarra Dilley, Freja Carmichael and Lana Lopesi. 3 Judy Watson, conversation with the author, 25 August 2023. 4 'Sápmi' is the Sámi people's own name for their territory. 5 David Garneau and Kimberley Moulton, 'Sovereign by virtue of our motion', in Transits and Returns [exhibition catalogue], Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2019, pp.21–4. Emphasis is author's own. 6 Watson, conversation with the author. 7 Watson, conversation with the author. 8 Hetti Perkins and Brenda Croft, quoted in Louise Martin-Chew and Judy Watson, Judy Watson: blood language , Miegunyah Press, Carlton, Vic., 2009, p.194. 9 David Garneau, 'Toward Indigenous Criticism: The Ah Kee paradox', Artlink , 1 June 2013, <artlink.com.au/articles/3951/toward- indigenous-criticism-the-ah-kee-paradox/>, viewed August 2023. 10 The exhibition featured the work of Aboriginal artists Megan Cope, d Harding, Yhonnie Scarce and Watson, as well as Inuk artist asinnajaq. While recognising that my use of the term 'Indigenous' here flattens the differences between these artists from different nations, I use it purposefully to emphasise the shared collective consciousness that the Indigenous represents. 11 See the description of Watson's work as 'cultural leakage' in Martin-Chew and Watson, p.94. 12 Jolene Rickard, 'The emergence of global Indigenous art', in Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art [exhibition catalogue], National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2013, pp.54–9. 13 'in between a “k” and a “g”', 2021 Horizon Festival: Final Call , <2021. horizonfestival.com.au/finalcall/ >, viewed September 2023. 14 Judy Watson, artist statement for moreton bay rivers, australian temperature chart, freshwater mussels, net, spectrogram 2022, QAGOMA Research Library Artist File. 15 2021 Horizon Festival: Final Call . 16 Birgit Hopfener, Heather Igloliorte, Ruth Phillips, Carmen Robertson and Ming Tiampo, 'World-making: Indigenous art and worlding the global', in Àbadakone | Continuous Fire | Feu continuel [exhibition catalogue], National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2019, p.116. ever-broadening scope without losing cultural specificity'. Panellists and art history scholars Birgit Hopfener and Ming Tiampo offered one possible pathway in their discussion of 'worlding', the act of world-making, which 'ground[s] the global within local worlds and allow[s] entangled histories to emerge'. 16 Judy Watson's paintings in 'Reclaim the Earth' — four of which later travelled across the Great Ocean to feature in the 14th Gwangju Biennale, in 2023, aptly titled soft and weak like water — assert the specificity of a practice shaped by Waanyi culture and Country, and the ongoing colonial occupation of Aboriginal lands and waters. The fluid persistence of the artist's works is also a means of 'worlding the Indigenous', whereby that specificity intermixes with other places, cultures and histories, and enables new worlds to emerge. Installation view of works by Judy Watson at 14th Gwangju Biennale, 2023 PP.78–9 a complicated fall: palm island lament (detail) 2007 heron island #3 and heron island #4 2009/10 The elements depicted in moreton bay rivers, australian temperature chart, freshwater mussels, net, spectogram 2022 form a vast network of associations between language, culture, knowledge, and the environment. — JUDY WATSON 76 77