The grasses swept sideways and the bent trees choked with rubbish? The beautiful bodies of water, now narrowly confined by the city streets into elegant docks and neatly bordered rock edges. Did you know Melbourne city was swampland, Elizabeth Street a river, the Yarra used to be wild and clean?
As I walk, I consider what Country may have once been before invasion, capitalism, and the subsequent pollution and destruction. I think of the skies, waters, lands, animals, plants: all known, loved, and connected.
I think of the clever birds, lining their nests with abandoned paper and foraged fibres; I think of how our biological urges at nest-making now result in broken Kmart landfill and discarded packaging. I look for peace and find rubbish. I collect what crap I find and spin and weave and turn it into something as beautiful as I can make it.
In walking, collecting, and making, I attempt to engage in reciprocal acts of care towards myself and Country. I try to make sense of what we've done and am left with naught. I try to do what good I can do.
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