Nawi

Artist Bern Emmerichs

Date2019

Object number00055467

NameCeramic Tile

MediumCeramic

DimensionsOverall (framed): 330 × 1232 × 35 mm, 9000 g
Overall (ceramic): 299 × 1201 × 8 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection

Terms

DescriptionA painted ceramic slab by Bern Emmerichs picturing Sydney Harbour in the 1880s from above. European Sydney town is depicted with detailed streets and buildings, including Fort Macquarie at Bennelong Point. The surrounding harbour waters are filled with nawis. HistoryArtists statement: 'Dreamtime' the painting is really referring to my dreamtime Imagine, Sydney Harbour, 1880's, busy with Indigenous people in their wonderful dugout canoes! Ever since the Rolf De Heers film, released in 2006, 'Ten Canoes', l've had a quiet obsession about scar trees. Heightened especially since moving to Collingwood, nine years ago, and being fixated by the Yarra River. Almost every day I walk my 2 doglets (Italian greyhounds) on the river, it's such an oasis on Melbourne's doorstep, you can really drift away imagining how life was like on the river for Indigenous people before colonization. I have stumbled across quite a number of scar trees on my walks, sometimes not keeping to the paths. My once regular trips to Central Victoria, were also dotted with many sightings, mostly having been used for activities on the Lodden River. I am constantly on the lookout! ‘Dreaming’, in the sense of sleep, has always been a big part of me, and my sleep patterns and dreaming are only now, returning after a family trauma, almost five years ago. I am always amazed at the power of the brain, and its capabilities! The fact that my dream capacity has returned, is so exciting for me!! Maybe in the future, with Melbourne's secondary school rowing (rivalry) culture, we will see dugout canoes, totally built under Indigenous supervision and ownership of course, competing on the Yarra!"- Bern Emmerichs August 2019 Bern Emmerichs muses about an alternative waterscape and Indigenous identity. She dreams of possibilities, an imagined past and future where Aboriginal people and their watercraft dominate the waterscape. The tableau is significant creative depiction of the strength and importance of Indigenous identity and watercraft traditions in the cultural landscape and imagination of Australians today, by a non-Indigenous woman. SignificanceVictorian artist Bern Emmerichs brings her creative sensitivities and interest in historical sources and artistic traditions to her explorations of historical events and themes of national importance. This work is significant as a non-Indigenous woman's imagining of the past and future, an historic Sydney Harbour crowded with Indigenous people in their watercraft. Her ceramic tableau provides a window through which to contemplate this alternative scenario.