Healing Kangaroo Island through connection to Country

The bushfires of 2019-20 had a devastating impact on the community of Kangaroo Island, south-west of Adelaide.

With the community rebuilding from the bushfire which burned through half of the island, the Kangaroo Island Culture for Recovery project was born.

Sarah Kemp of Smart Future Creative wanted to create a space for First Nations people to share their story of connection to Kangaroo Island and to provide the community access to the restorative and healing power of creation.

‘We believe that building relationships with the language groups that maintain spiritual and cultural connection to Kangaroo Island is critical to the healing of this place,’ she said.

Ngarrindjeri, Ramindjeri and Narungga artist Cedric Varcoe came to the Island as Artist-in-residence and held two separate cultural workshops with local residents.

The first workshop focussed on traditional and contemporary weaving practices.

Held over a weekend in August, the weaving workshops saw 70 community members, aged 7 to 90 participate in several weaving sessions. Each participant brought something that represented their connection to place which they used in their weaving project.

Following the weekend of weaving, Cedric collected the weavings and will now join the pieces together to creating a ‘map’.

For many who attended the weaving workshops, this was their first opportunity to connect with Indigenous culture in such a setting.

Attendee and local artist, Janine Mackintosh, said it was such a joy to spend time with Cedric who generously shared his stories and weaving techniques.

‘It was wonderful to connect with culture and each other, to create, yarn, laugh and heal – one stitch at a time.’

Kath Bald, another attendee, said the workshop was refreshing and relaxing.

‘There was lots of conversation, sharing of ideas and meeting new people.’

‘Cedric was so calm and open to share his story and skills with us, and start a journey for Kangaroo Island of healing and knowledge sharing.’

The second workshop saw over 170 adults and children participate in multiple sessions of painting to create a brightly coloured collaborative mural for the community.

Cedric said he is passionate about sharing culture through art and enjoyed running these workshops.

’I enjoyed everybody coming together and taking part in something that they would not otherwise get the opportunity to do,’ Cedric said.

Cedric hopes the community will benefit by participating in these unique activities.

‘I wanted to facilitate a workshop where the community could come along and have a break from stress and worry, while connecting with our culture.’

The collaborative woven ‘map’ and the mural will be presented to the Kangaroo Island community in November 2020.