croatee kanne menyenner

croatee kanne menyenner 2024

Croatee kanne menyenner / tales of 60,000 years

Through kinship obligations and mythical identities, kangaroos are used as a metaphor for Palawa identity in Tasmania / Lutriwita (from an excerpt by senior Palawa man Greg Lehman 1995).

This body of work comprising 60 kangaroo skins, and 9 kangaroo hides, employs long-used and contemporary materials to draw upon personal archives of deep memory and to incorporate them into sculptural installations. While this work was created in response to Country, ancestral histories, stories and cultural materials, it also navigates the complexities of mtDNA through an enduring matrilineal line.

Recent analysis of the artist’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), has revealed an unbroken maternal lineage that goes back 60,000 years. This ancient lineage evolved in Australia. (Ref: 2023, Prof. J. Mitchell, The Genographic Project, La Trobe University).

Moving towards deeper understandings that inform her sense of identity and belonging, the artist is contemplating far-reaching complexities of this matrilineal line that takes her to the continuum of menyenner / yesterday.