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From the series Backtrack
The Kimberley wilderness is vastly different to my New Zealand homeland. The region’s isolation and idiosyncrasies made sharing experiences outside a small local network challenging. This body of work uses drawing to reflect, process and share fragments of my story as an arts worker in the West Kimberley. Rendering memories as a cathartic process, rather than drafting an accurate, archival record of an event or moment in time.
Mapping
‘Several years ago, during a time transition and burnout, I began to map my travel routines as a form of catharsis. The physical plotting of movement and repetition across time and space provided perspective and a pathway for reflective journaling.’
‘The first map I drew tracked the flight paths routinely travelled between the Kimberley and my home in Aotearoa New Zealand. Next, I retraced the bush trips I journeyed as an arts worker travelling with Wandjina Wunggurr peoples. Some bush trips are so significant they remain undrawn. The maps I have chosen to draw are connected to places already accessible to the public.’
About this drawing:
At first, the Kimberley town of Derby appears wide open, a flat, hill-less landscape edged by the muddy waters of the infamous King Sound. Access to the saltwater creeks and marshland requires an intimate knowledge of Derby’s backtracks, a network vulnerable to the fluctuations of a 12-metre tidal system. This drawing archives a journey I made most workdays driving between our bush block to Mowanjum Community and Derby township. The top line is a dirt track that runs along the outskirts of town onto the marsh.