SAFE KEEPING

Safe Keeping questions the unauthorised removal of Aboriginal stone tools from Country.

This printmaking series looks closely at the Worrorra stone tools collected by Kimberley bushman Vic Cox and questions the removal of cultural materials from the landscape. The stone tools are now part of the Mowanjum Collection at Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre as per the wishes of Worrorra elder and artist Nyorna Woolagoodja.

In 2015 Katie Breckon moved onto a ten-acre bush block in the Kimberley the deceased estate of Vic Cox, a well-known bushman, and crocodile hunter. Vic was a bower bird, and his property contained collections of found and traded objects from the Kimberley coast. Among the collections, were buckets containing stone tools some marked with a location and date linking the tools to the Worrorra language group of the West Kimberley coast.

The collection contains a selection of handmade tools designed for living off the land, cores for creating smaller flakes and unfinished pieces. The entire collection has been checked for cultural restrictions and deemed safe for display by senior members of the Worrorra language group Nyorna Woolagoodja, Janet Oobagooma, members of Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre and Whadjuk, Noongar elder Barry McGuire for the Fremantle Safe Keeping exhibition.

It was through conversations with respected Worrorra cultural advisors, artists, remote community archive networks across the top end of Australia, geologists and anthropologists working in the Kimberley, that Katie became aware of the cultural and environmental concerns relating to the removal of significant objects from custodial lands. As tourism and mining industries are accessing Australia's most remote and significant sites, how do custodians protect their cultural heritage?

Vic Cox loved the Kimberley coast and had respect for Worrorra Country and friendships with Worrorra people. Vic's story is his own and these tools whether found, traded or gifted came to live on his bush block, discovered and returned to Worrorra ownership.