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untitled (giran) includes approximately 2000 separate sculptures of six types of tool, each made from a different material: bagay (an emu eggshell spoon); galigal (a stone knife); bingal (an animal bone awl); bindu-gaany (a freshwater mussel scraper); dhala-ny (a hardwood spear point); and waybarra (a rush ‘start’, the beginning of a woven item, such as a basket). Such tools allowed our ancestors to hunt, prepare food, eat, sustain and protect themselves, living lightly and flexibly. Each tool embodies the knowledge passed down through generations and represents the potential for change. ‘Each idea, each tool, is limitless in its potential’, says Jones. Jones has made many of these tools himself, as well as working with family members, Wiradjuri community and long-time artistic collaborators — including Ngarrindjeri artist Aunty Yvonne Koolmatrie — from across the country’s south-east. His process of making brings people together and enhances connections to the land, culture and language. It also strengthens ties to generations who have passed on, countering the loss of knowledge that has occurred throughout Indigenous Australia as a result of colonisation. As Jones notes, ‘Knowledge isn’t a single line’. A small bundle of feathers, gathered from birds from a wide range of locations, is bound to each tool with handmade string. People from all over Australia sent Jones packages of feathers to include in the work, many with handwritten notes. 2 To guide their participation, Jones asked his feather- collecting collaborators to ‘Slow down, look around, listen to the birds’, and offered a quote from the late Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Michael Riley: ‘I see the feather, myself, as sort of a messenger, sending messages onto people and community and places’. 3 untitled (giran) shares traditional knowledge and seeks to foster change and the exchange of ideas and skills. Uncle Stan Grant Snr speaks of this work as continuing the development of Wiradjuri gulbanha (philosophy), working with language and Country via the artwork for the ongoing enrichment of the community. In the face of globalising economies of scale, Jones and Grant advocate for Country as a place of many languages, philosophies, technologies, stories, songs and treasures. Language is a vital inheritance passed from one generation to the next, as is our capacity to listen to the wind. GB 2 Many sent feathers in response to a call out from Kaldor Public Art Projects, which hosted Jones’s previous major work, barrangal dyara (skin and bones) 2016, a vast sculptural installation stretching across 20 000 square metres of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden. 3 Michael Riley, <michaelriley. com.au/cloud-2000 >, viewed July 2018. (above, opposite and pp.184–5) Jonathan Jones with Dr Uncle Stan Grant Snr AM , untitled (giran) (details) 2018 183 182 Change Change