Gundabooka-Gundungurra by Libby Wakefield in response to Gundabooka by Andrew Hull
Audio Description
Audio Description Text
My name is Libby Wakefield, and I am the artist who made the work Gundabooka- Gundungurra, in response to Andrew Hull’s poem and sound recording called Gundabooka. The work I made is an oil painting. It is on medium density fibreboard about 36cm x 23cm. The board is thick and is organic and irregular in its shape, similar to a river stone. It has 3 smaller similar shapes mounted onto the board, resembling pebbles.
The inspiration for the work came in direct response to listening to Andrews’s sound recordings of the river and birds sounds. His recording and poem echoed my own experience of walking along my own local river. When you look at my work you would see a painting made with the colours and shapes that illustrate those of river stones and scattered pebbles that have been washed over and over for many, many years. You would also be able to recognise in the painting subtle aspects of a traditional landscape painting, sky, clouds, horizon, and riverbank. And if you continued to look you may see some scratchings and lines carved into the painted wooden surface. These act as subtle reminder of the ancient nature of the river and its first peoples and our connectedness. If you were to pick up the work, you could feel its rounded edges and feel the raised smaller pebbles, you could hold it and cradle it in your arms.
Gaundabooka
by Andrew Hull
inhalare part 1 – text
Witness by Andrew Hull
It might rain. I’d hoped it had already.
Over the ridge, into the gorge, careful steps, heave, click, plug, switch, stop.
Breathe.
Breathe again, and there it is: what I came to see.
My life.
There are my children, as infants, as adults. Curls like questions, laughter like fear, delight and wonder and apprehension—and belonging.
My ancestors. Unknown to me as I to my descendants—as my existence is to a star.
Myself, in monochrome. All my hopes before me, hazy and uncertain. Behind me, failures and loss, in perfect clarity.
My selection of my version of how things are. A raindrop on stone. Insignificant, and all that I will ever be.
Sandy pools that have filled and overflowed, lived, blossomed, sustained, withered and dried, a hundred thousand thousand times. I witnessed.
I am the only witness to my life.
This place, vivid in my memory, knows me not.
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