"The breeze going through the eel trap gives a feeling of water flowing through the vessel with the feathers softly waiving as the water flows. My grandfather Nicholas Couzens and my uncles made eel traps to fish the Hopkins River - this is how my mother learnt the techniques which she passed on to me."Bronwyn RAZEM Gunditjmara/Kirrae Whurrong Bronwyn Razem is an Indigenous Australian basket weaver and painter. She is a Gunditjmara woman of the Kirrae Whurrong clan of western Warrnambool on the Victorian coastline. Bronwyn’s practice involves an exploration of her Indigenous heritage and identity, and she creates symbolic representations of places and events that are meaningful to her family. She integrates ochres, sand and other materials into her paintings, and her works also draw on the possum skin cloak traditions of her ancestors. In 2008, Bronwyn was chosen by the Australia Council for the Arts to be part of a delegation of Indigenous artists to attend the 10th Pacific Arts Festival in Western Samoa. Bronwyn’s mother, Aunty Zelda Couzens, was a well-respected basket weaver and elder who taught Bronwyn basket-making techniques. Bronwyn now regularly conducts basket weaving workshops with Victorian Indigenous communities in order to facilitate the revival of cultural traditions. She has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours at Deakin University, and in 2008 she was enrolled in a Master by Research degree at Deakin Institute of Koorie Education, Geelong, and was living in Ballarat. (https://www.daao.org.au/bio/bronwyn-razem/biography/, accessed 18 April 2016) This item is part of the Federation University Art Collection. The Art Collection features over 1000 works and was listed as a 'Ballarat Treasure' in 2007.Bronwyn RAZEM (1953- ) Gunditjmara/Kirraw Wurrong A woven New Zealand flax eel trap with emu feathers. This work won the University of Ballarat Acquisitive Award for work reflecting Victoria's Western District. The judges were impressed by Bronwyn Razem's translation of the traditional eel trap into a sculptural form evocative of the flow of water and possible the passage of time. The design and technical knowhow which Razem inherited from her mother, uncles, and grandfather connects this work to the family;s life and traditions. She then enhances the simplicity of this very functional object by the addition of delicate emu feathers, creating a work that creatively and symbolically transcends its original form. art, artwork, bronwyn razem, razem, eel trap, aboriginal, indigenous, available

This work is from a series centred around the Chinese proverb “to hold a book in one’s hand is to hold a house of gold” in which the artist positions himself within sites of colonial power. Set within the National Wool Museum gallery, the artist references the pose of an exhausted shearer after a long day of arduous labour. However he is reclining while reading The Fire Stick by Wulla Merrii, a novel set against the 1891 Queensland Shearer’s Strike, questioning cultural stereotypes and how they pertain to concepts of work and leisure. Dressed in sub fusc, his official uniform as an Oxford scholar, Thompson is a defiant intellectual challenging past and continued misperceptions of First Nations people, while embracing both the intersections of his identity and his ancestral heritage. Dr Christian Thompson AO is a Bidjara man of the Kunja Nation with Irish and Chinese heritage. His practice spans across video, photography, sculpture, textiles, performance and sound, evolving through a process of auto – ethnography. While employing various modes of research, he connects his own experience to larger social, political, cultural meanings and understandings. His doctoral research and art practice has had a critical impact on International and Australian art, making global history as one of the first Australian Indigenous students at Oxford University. In 2018 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished services to the visual arts and as a role model to young indigenous artists in the Queen’s Birthday honours list.Framed photograph showing a man dressed in an academic gown, laying on their back holding a book. The setting is a reconstructed shearing shed, inside the galleries of the National Wool Museum.dr christian thompson, first nations, artwork, photography, oxford, heritage, national wool museum

non-fictionContains oral accounts by Mrs Doreen K Wanganeen recording the genealogies of her familysouth australia, indigenous australians, james wanganeen c1836, poonindie mission, point peace