Memory Vessels

Heidi Axelsen, Hugo Moline, Jamie Eastwood and Dean Kelly

2020

The starting point for Memory Vessels is the Nawi, the predominant form of watercraft transport throughout the harbour, rivers and creeks used by the Aboriginal people of Greater Sydney. For this project a set of Nawi were made again in the same way they always have been, using bark of the gum tree, the same tree whose leaves are used in the ceremonial smoking pit nearby.

From these living Nawi the final forms of the works were cast, remaining as only a trace, a memory. Laid in strata, like the geology of the earth itself, the work speaks of the immense time scales of this land and its people.

Commissioned by HARC for the Westmead Hospital Redevelopment Project

Video by Martin Brown