Kim Wandin, i uk bagurrk gunga, 2023
Wurundjeri artist and Elder Kim Wandin's sculpture iuk bagurrk gunga, meaning eel women catch, is an eight-metre-long bronze eel trap located in the moat of NGV International on St Kilda Road. The second artwork in our partnership commission series is a tribute to the history of Wurundjeri women, their tradition of weaving, and their relationship with the short-finned eel.
Artist's statement
This work honours women and the role they played in weaving and catching eels to provide for family. It is based on a bundled coil technique which was taught by my Nana Ollie. Its form holds the essence of those eel traps made by my ancestors. Its reflective surface symbolises their strength and resilience, and its sinuous form, their flexibility to adapt, as an eel trap adapts to the flow of the water.
Short-finned eels journey from fresh to salt water, and then the young return to fresh water from salt water. The trap also honours their extraordinary journey and life cycle. It also acknowledges the precious nature of Birrarung's waterways. Water flows through the trap like our ancestral spirit flowing through our lives.
Eel traps are a wonderful example of simple effective sustainable technology that served First Nations people for thousands of years. This eel trap captures the essence of a sustainable lifestyle as practiced by my ancestors and acts as a reminder that they are always present guiding me.
This work also honours family, who are forever important.
This eel trap is a statement of survival, we are still here.
About the artist
Aunty Kim Wandin is a Wurundjeri Elder of the Woiwurrung language group. She has lived and worked on Country in Healesville, Victoria, her entire life. Her traditional basket-making has been handed down to her from her grandmother, great-grandmother and ancestors.
Aunty Kim's work represents a significant cultural position within the south-east of Victoria as part of an important group of arts practitioners. Her work adheres to and references traditional cultural practices. As a leading Aboriginal artist, Aunty Kim explores contemporary genres that both enhance and complement her basketry and fibre pieces. Her work speaks of space, texture and light, while referencing notions of movement. As an Elder, she advocates for strengthening culture and sharing her knowledge.
Aunty Kim Wandin, 'iuk burgurrk gunga', 2023, on display at NGV International, Melbourne
Photo: Sean Fennessy
Aunty Kim Wandin, 'iuk burgurrk gunga', 2023, on display at NGV International, Melbourne
Sean Fennessy
Aunty Kim Wandin, 'iuk burgurrk gunga', 2023, on display at NGV International, Melbourne
Photo: Sean Fennessy
Aunty Kim Wandin, 'iuk burgurrk gunga', 2023, on display at NGV International, Melbourne
Sean Fennessy
Top image: Aunty Kim Wandin’s work iuk burgurrk gunga displayed 3 December 2023 to 7 April 2024 at NGV International, Melbourne.
Photo: Sean Fennessy
Julian Opie, Australian birds. 2020
The first artwork in this partnership commission series is Australian birds. by British artist Julian Opie. Located on the western median strip on St Kilda Road between Alexandra Avenue and Southbank Boulevard, Australian birds. is Opie’s largest LED based public artwork to date.
This artwork was inspired by Opie’s father’s stories of growing up in Australia, as well as the artist’s own experiences of spotting native birds on his travels around Australia. For this work pigeons, gulls, ducks, swamp hens, herons and ibis were filmed in Melbourne before being drawn in the artist’s signature style and then animated. Unperturbed by the passing traffic, they graze on the nature strips along St Kilda Road, comfortable in their casual ownership of the street.
Opie observes: ‘Many birds share our living space but, thanks to flight, are largely free to ignore us. It seems to me that animals are generally underrated and ignored in such a terrible way – in life and art.’
About the artist
Julian Opie is a sculptor, painter, printmaker and installation artist. Between 1972 and 1982 he attended Goldsmiths College where he studied under Michael Craig-Martin. During the early 1980s Opie became associated with a generation of sculptors known as New British Sculpture, a group that included artists Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Wentworth and Tony Cragg.
In recent years he has received major commissions for murals for public spaces and buildings, including Lindo Wing, St Mary’s Hospital, London (2012) and Central Station, Milan (2003). In 1995 Opie was awarded the Sargent Fellowship at the British School in Rome and the Spanish Art Critics Association (AECA) Award, ARCOmadrid, in 2015.
Opie was part of the 1998 Sydney Biennale and the subject of a solo retrospective exhibition at NGV International in 2018.
