‘DURANGEN’ means ‘grow’ or ‘growing’ in a number of dialects of the traditional Bundjalung language, and this documentary features six matriarchs speaking about their insider perspectives on plant art.
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About the film
‘DURANGEN’ means ‘grow’ or ‘growing’ in a number of dialects of the traditional Bundjalung language, and this documentary features six matriarchs speaking about their insider perspectives on plant art.
Discussing our artworks in the film highlights the contribution of women’s work in growing culture, alongside some of the many native plant companions revered in daily living for us as Aboriginal people since time immemorial, but are now under threat from recent floods, fires, drought and pests. It is essential for us to have an archival record and be able to reshare this, especially as it involves the irreplaceable biological heritage of the plant queendom.
As senior artists and cultural practitioners of the matriarchy, we each represent different clan groups that make up some of the Bundjalung Nation and are featured in collaboration with cyberTribe: Euphemia Bostock (Munanjali), Faith Baisden (Kombumerri), Tania Marlowe (Nyanbul), Deidre Currie (Minjungbal), Jasmin Stanford (Githabul), and myself as Artist Curator Filmmaker, Jenny Fraser (Migunburri).
The artists interviewed for the DURANGEN documentary were also part of a world first Bundjalung plant art showcase in Japan, representing Australia at the 2023 JAALA Biennial held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. The self-funded group collection featured a range of weaving, textiles, ceramics, photography, film and text, all with a focus on a bio-regional approach to native plant uses.
About the author
Jenny Fraser
Jenny Fraser works within a fluid screen-based creative practice. Her old people hail from Yugambeh Country in the Gold Coast Hinterland, the Northern Bundjalung. She is a celebrated screen artist, being awarded the 2016 Mana Wairoa Grand Award for Advancement of Indigenous Rights from the Wairoa Film Festival in Aotearoa New Zealand for her documentary Solid Sisters, an honourable mention at the 2007 imagineNATIVE Film Festival, Toronto, Canada for 'name that movie'; and received an Australia Council Fellowship for her project 'Midden' in 2012, which was featured at the 2014 Adelaide Festival. In 2015 she was also recognised with awards for Newcomer Director in the International Documentary category at the World Film Awards and The International Film Festival for Environment, Health and Culture. Fraser founded online gallery cyberTribe in 1999, the Blackout Collective in 2002, Solid Screen Festival in 2014, and World Screen Culture in 2015. Dr Jenny Fraser has served on the National Advisory Group for the Centre for Indigenous Story, and as an Associate Member of the Centre for Creative Arts at Latrobe University.
Featured at festival
SF3
17/11/2024
Sydney, Australia