Marrum (overflow)
Various artists
A collaboration between several Aboriginal artists, marrum (overflowing) continues the stories told in Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones’ recent ground-breaking exhibition Bunha-bunhanga: Aboriginal agriculture in the south-east. Jonathan explains;
‘The Wiradjuri word, bunha-bunhanga, meaning ‘the abundance of food’, is used to describe the Country that south-east Aboriginal communities created – bountiful Country that has now been degraded by the introduction of western farming techniques and government mismanagement. In 1925 the Wiradjuri Elder and leader John Noble, also known as Marvellous, lamented that his once bountiful Country was a thing of the past. Noble, like many other survivors of the frontier, bore witness to unimaginable change. He would have known the old ways when Aboriginal people weren’t living on crumbs but enjoyed an abundance – an abundance of food and an abundance of resources, from which our communities drew strength. Yet Country wasn’t a passive provider for wandering ‘hunter-gatherers’. Country rich in possums, fish and yams doesn’t happen by accident or by chance. It was achieved with precise knowledge and through generations of conditioning which ultimately resulted in the world’s oldest living cultures.’
The works in marrum (overflowing) speak not only to past abundance, but also attest the rich knowledge still alive in these artists and their communities, continuing to make cultural items celebrating the bounty of Country, just as the Old People did.
