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d Harding Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people Born 1982, Moranbah, Queensland, Australia Lives and works in Brisbane, Queensland with Hayley Matthew Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people Born 1988, Rockhampton, Queensland Lives and works in Brisbane On the walls of sandstone caves in central Queensland, outlines of hands, weapons and tools emerge from a haze of blown ochre, each contributing to a dynamic accumulation of colour and form. These rock art galleries are compressed planes of reproduction: palimpsests of the inscriptions of multiple First Nation generations dating back 19 000 years. 1 Yet, like all works of art, the galleries’ continuity depends on their present-day care. Recent damage to these cultural sites has resulted from tourism-led interventions, such as viewing platforms and walkways that can catch alight, igniting fires that permanently blacken the sandstone surface and erase its images forever. 2 Such incidents highlight the fraught negotiation between seeking artistic recognition while ensuring cultural protection, as well as the entanglements of visibility and visitation. The questions of witnessing, translating and extending the artistic lessons held within these sites form a central concern of d Harding’s practice. Along with their cousin Hayley Matthew, Harding created As I remember it (H2) 2022 in much the same way that artists have worked on their Country for thousands of years: by patiently and repeatedly blowing ochre over a chosen tool, creating two-dimensional shadows of the object on a surface — in this case, a gami or wooden digging stick used primarily to harvest root vegetables. This tool–stencil was carved by Uncle Milton Lawton and is a replica of a digging stick owned by Harding and Matthew’s grandmother, Margaret Lawton. In central Queensland, rock art galleries typically replicate boomerangs and shields, which are associated with men’s activities. By incorporating their grandmother’s instrument into this rock art tradition, Harding enfolds the stories of women into a living cultural practice. Finally, the digging stick’s outline is a residue of female labour informed by matrilineal knowledge passed from mother to daughter for generations. 1 Jackie Huggins, Rita Huggins, Jane M Jacobs, ‘Kooramindanjie: Place and the postcolonial’, History Workshop Journal , vol.39, issue 1, Spring 1995, p.166. 2 Paul SC Tacon, ‘Baloon Cave visit and assessment, Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland’, in Dale Harding: Through a Lens of Visitation [exhibition catalogue], Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne, 2021, pp.142–56. d Harding with Hayley Matthew / Know them in correct judgement – Gami (details) 2020 (opposite) Hayley Matthew with Know them in correct judgement – Gami 2020 in d Harding ’s studio 2020 95 94 Shared Shared