Kabi Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi Country is the land of my childhood. Rainforest Country bordered by mountains, rivers and ocean. In the 1880s, most Kabi Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi people were violently removed from the land where I now live. My ancestors also arrived here at this time. I was never told of my family’s involvement in this war. It was not spoken of. Much was not spoken of.

I cannot speak for ghosts, but I can see patterns. Patterns that move across generations. Patterns that settle into culture, land use and family life.

I grew up with violence in many forms. Suppression, repression and denial shaped the world I inherited. The land was taken, owned, diminished and controlled. My body was also taken, owned, diminished and controlled. Frightened men fight until they die. I left so I would not die fighting back.

Now I have returned.

Becoming Home is a body of work made in an attempt to face the violence and disconnection of the past. It sits at the meeting point of personal, familial and colonial histories. The work holds my effort to witness violence enacted against Kabi Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi people, against land, and against my own body. This is not an act of repair in any complete sense. It is an act of witnessing. To myself. To others. To Country.

So I listen.

I listen to the knowledge carried by Traditional Owners. I listen to Country and its long intelligence of people, weather, water, stone and time. I listen to my body and its desire to remain here without reproducing harm. To interrupt the inheritance of violence rather than pass it on.

The drawings in Becoming Home are made through sensorimotor mark making. This method allows me to meet Country through the body rather than through representation. I draw while listening with skin, muscle, pressure and balance. A conversation takes place between sensory perception and terrain.

These works are records of the deep reverence that can exist between bodies of land and flesh. They are petitions against the destruction of their unity. Love poems to Country, teaching me to come home, teaching me to become home.

Becoming Home stays with place, history and responsibility.

This work was made on Kabi Kabi / Gubbi Gubbi Country, with deep respect for Elders past, present and future.