©WURINBEENA 2023
PRIVACY POLICY
TERMS OF SERVICE
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www.wurinbeena.org.au
www.wurinbeena.org.au
©WURINBEENA 2023
PRIVACY POLICY
TERMS OF SERVICE
Gunai Bidawal
Highly respected for his leadership and work with disengaged Aboriginal youth in his community, Lennie Hayes OAM received the Victorian Indigenous Art Award in 2012 for his service to Regional Communities and in 2020 he was awarded the Order of Australia for service to Indigenous visual art, and to the community.
Lennie was also recognised for his excellent work as a Community Liaison Officer and Cultural Adviser on many diverse cross-cultural projects including festivals, films, public events and art Installations. He led a team of young Koorie men to work on The Spirit Poles and Camp Fire-Water Hole in 2009, culminating in the first permanent Gunaikurnai artwork in Lakes Entrance since colonisation. The poles stand proudly at the entranceway to the community health precinct, welcoming all visitors.
In 2007 his courageous approach as a leader at the Common Ground Festival united the Aboriginal and broader communities of Lakes Entrance. The participants and audience came together to celebrate sixty thousand years of Australian history on Australia Day. Lennie was also an important member of the Fire-Place Installation team. The work was part of a major state-wide Regional Arts Victoria project called Illuminated by Fire; it was featured as a spectacular artwork at Light in Winter, Federation Square Melbourne in 2011.
Lennie was a founding member of Wurinbeena Ltd and a member of the creative team awarded the Indigenous Cultural Expressions Commission by the Victorian Government to build Gunyah movable art space.
In various leadership roles working with Filmmaker Vincent Lamberti and the Wurinbeena artists, he has helped record the previously untold stories of the Aboriginal Elders in his community. These are remarkable stories of trauma, survival, and resilience ‘post white’ settlement. In 2022 the stories were transcribed into a beautiful hard cover book, named after the original film series Black Post White.
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Vincenzo Lamberti is a Documentary Film Director and Cinematographer. Vincenzo worked for six years with Aboriginal Town-Camp communities while living in Alice Springs to produce a number of broadcast and festival shorts such as the award-winning comedy Bus Stop.
His ABC documentary Intervention, made in collaboration with a team of Town-Camp women researchers, won the Documentary Australia award for Best Australian Documentary. He has worked with East Gippsland Aboriginal communities including Wurinbeena for over 15 years, resulting in numerous documentaries such as Black Post White, Blue Horizons and the NITV commissioned Kangaroo Tales.
As a Cinematographer his credits include feature documentaries The Opposition, China’s Artful Dissident, Palazzo di Cozzo and You can go now, and SBS broadcast series Filthy Rich and Homeless, and Meet the Neighbours.
Vincenzo’s new feature documentary KillJoy tells the story of a family homicide from the point of view of the child. Occasionally, when he gets the time, he also composes music.
Bidawal Wurundjeri
Elaine Terrick is a highly recognized, southeastern Australian basket weaver. Her craft was passed on to her by her mother Aunty Edith Terrick, as part of a long matrilineal, cultural tradition. Elaine’s accomplished and exquisitely beautiful work distinguishes her as a maker of extraordinary skill. In 2004 her skills were internationally recognised when she was invited as the Australian Indigenous Weavers representative in Palau at the Cultural Gathering of Pacific Island Weavers.
In 2002 Elaine and her mother were invited to share their skills on a contemporary art project being delivered in Lakes Entrance. They generously mentored a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous weavers to create a huge magpie nest for the tray of the Sky Raising Magpies ute. The community cultural development project was centred on bringing together disengaged youth to address racially driven violence in the town. For Elaine this experience set in motion a long and passionate career using her craft to address reconciliation and reclaim her culture. The magnificent, multi-art form FC Holden Ute was part of Melbourne International Festival, it now proudly resides at Bunjilaka, Melbourne Museum.
Major commissions include a weaving installation for the interior of the restaurant Charcoal Lane in Fitzroy Melbourne, and devising a large woven centrepiece which held the visual centre of Kangaroo Tales, a major collaborative art Installation created in 2015 to tour with the Gunyah movable art space.
In 2007 Elaine received the Victorian Indigenous Art Award for her outstanding service in community cultural development and reconciliation. The award followed on from her collaborative work at Meeting Place, the National Regional Arts Conference in Horsham and Common Ground, a cross-cultural, waterfront spectacle held in Lakes Entrance on Australia Day 2007. Aunty Edith Terrick performed the first welcome to country since colonization, and sixty thousand years of history was celebrated by the Aboriginal and broader communities of East Gippsland.
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Catherine Larkins OAM is an artist, creative director, and arts activist. Her arts practice addresses issues of cultural and geographical remoteness, racial and socio-economic tension, and reconciliation.
Catherine was internationally recognised for her innovation in community cultural development when she was invited to present her work at the Global Reconciliation Summit in Amman, Jordan. She then represented Australia at the 2012 UNESCO Andorra Art Camp, her artwork titled Bloodlines was exhibited in the United Nations in Paris, Venice, and Vienna. On International Women’s Day 2018 she was recognised for her contribution to the arts in the Colours of the Planet exhibition at the United Nations, New York.
As a lecturer in Visual Arts for more than thirty years, she pioneered new ways of delivering tertiary arts education to isolated rural communities across East Gippsland. A Director and visual designer on many festivals and events, her students often worked alongside her creating site-specific art Installations, spectacles, and sculptures.
For decades Catherine has worked as both a practitioner and facilitator within the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities of East Gippsland. She has conceived and initiated diverse cross-cultural collaborations, producing a remarkable body of multi-art form Installations, events, and permanent public art works.
Her many years of dedication, hard work, commitment to and love for her community was officially acknowledged when she received the Order of Australia for service to Indigenous visual art, and the community in 2020.
Gunai Yuin Monaro
Frances Harrison OAM is a magnificent artist working naturally across multiple mediums; painter, print maker, wood burner. Her practice reflects her strong connection to country, culture, and family. Her highly detailed drawings are a powerful contemporary expression of an ancient, cultural continuum. To contemplate her work is to be invited on a deeper, more meaningful journey of generational wisdom and stories.
In 2020 Frances was awarded the Order of Australia for service to Indigenous visual art, and to the community. Her work has been exhibited widely and is in many public and private collections including The Koori Heritage Trust.
Over many years Frances made a significant contribution to schools and her community, sharing her skills and mentoring participants on many cross-cultural community arts projects. As a lead artist on The Spirit Poles, Frances guided young Koorie participants to burn the totemic shields, birds and animals of the Gunaikurnai Nation onto the bush poles. As the first Aboriginal public artwork in Lakes Entrance, it stands proudly at the entrance way to the community health precinct.
Frances was a founding member of Wurinbeena Ltd and manager of their Studio Gallery in Lakes Entrance. She was a member of the creative team who were awarded the Indigenous Cultural Expressions Commission by the Victorian Government in 2011 to build Gunyah movable art space. The team went on to make an extraordinary installation called Kangaroo Tales in 2015 which was designed to tour with Gunyah. Frances used traditional hot wire burning to draw stories from Gunaikurnai country onto the kangaroo skins. The Installation was exhibited in the Deadly Awards and then at Gippsland Art Gallery Sale.
Frances collaborated as a lead artist on Common Ground, a massive light and sound spectacle staged on the waterfront in Lakes Entrance. The ground-breaking event celebrated sixty thousand years of Australian history on Australia Day 2007. An iconic bark canoe, crafted by her father and a friend many years before, was floated centre stage.
Frances and her father Frank Harrison also guided the production team of Black Post White and the Oral Histories of Lakes Tyers and Surrounds film series. They encouraged and supported the Aboriginal Elders to share first-hand accounts of survival, trauma and resilience, ‘post white’ settlement. These remarkable interviews were then transcribed in 2022 into a limited edition, hard bound publication Black Post White, now in the permanent collection of the local, State and National Libraries.
