Custodian Boots

BACKGROUND: 'Custodian Boots' contributed to the 'Interpretive Wonderings' project, exploring multivalent understandings of the traditional country of the Barkandji people at the 8000 hectare Culpra Station in rural NSW. The video-based work traces the relationship between an adolescent Aboriginal boy with his grandfather - a custodian and elder of Barkandji country, his discoveries of traditional country and responsibilities when living both on and off country. The boot's-eye view shifts viewers' perception through the intimacy of foot's fall on land to empathise with constant negotiations of kinship and country in ever challenging circumstances. CONTRIBUTION: The work contributes an aesthetic invitation for Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians to develop mutual understanding and engagement in reconciliation through a mode of performative, participatory and politically critical creative work. Conventional cartographical mappings that enact instruments for preserving meaning and truth, and fixing notions of sovereignty, boundary, territory and relationships are challenged. The work contributes to Douglas' ongoing creative practice-based research in socially-engaged public art, performance and mobility and inter-cultural, artistic practice. SIGNIFICANCE: Esteem is evidenced by Douglas' selection for this significant project involving partners: Culpra Milli Aboriginal Corporation, Mildura Arts Centre, UTS, RMIT and Monash University. The project was exhibited twice in 2016 as 'Interpretative Wonderings' - Mildura Arts Centre, February - April; and 'Migratory Wonderings' - 107 Projects, Redfern Sydney, November (curated by Sven Mehzoud, Sophia Pearce, Campbell Drake & Jock Gilbert). The exhibitions were featured in the Mildura Independent, The Sunraysia Daily, on ABC Radio National and on SBS online where Custodian Boots is re-published via weblink.