The exhibition highlights the central role of water in societies, crucial for First Nations people, emphasising the waters’ cultural, spiritual, and economic significance.
WaterTalks presents the Hunter River, known as Coquun-Myan by the Awabakal, Worimi and Wonnarua Traditional Custodians, as a living entity, shedding light on the profound and pervasive impacts of colonialism and industrialisation on water and its social and ecological systems, rendered visible in the Anthropocene.
The Coquun’s hydrosocial narratives are depicted through a series of artefacts, projections and interactive elements that immerse the viewer in colonialist and post-colonialist water practices. Belonging, ownership, extractivism, dispossession and the biodiversity and climate crisis shape the river and its memories, entangled by deep time and spirit.
Choi Cai
Jye White
Dr Callum Twomey
Adviteeja Khujneri
University of Newcastle
Interweaving Waters
14 August 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Interweaving Waters brings together D’harawal, Dharug, Awabakal, Biripi, Balanggarra and Ngiyampaa Wangaaypuwan artists and practitioners to interweave water knowledge about the Burramattagal–Parramatta, Dyarubbin–Hawkesbury, Coquun–Hunter, and Boolumbahtee–Manning rivers.
Water Forces
28 August 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Water Forces explores how climate change and the biodiversity emergency can reshape understandings of the Coquun in the 21st century.
Water Ecologies
4 September 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Water Ecologies engages with ecological and hydrosocial narratives in the Coquun/Myan. Water Ecologies traces the ecologies at play in the Hunter, attending to the interrelationships that shape and are shaped by the Coquun-Myan.
Wake up the Snake
16 September 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Wake up the Snake is a provocation to wake up the consciousness of the people, our people, all people, across our region, our state, our nation and indeed the world.
Tin Sheds Gallery acknowledges the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, upon whose ancestral lands our exhibitions take place. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge of these lands, waterways and Country.
Top image: Disrupted WaterLand, 2023 by Irene perez Lopez. Courtesy Irene Perez Lopez
Bottom image: Canoe, Fernleigh Awabakal Shared Track, 2022 by Shellie Smith. Courtesy Shellie Smith
Phone: (02) 9351 3115
Email: tin.sheds@sydney.edu.au
Address: 148 City Road, Darlington Sydney, NSW
