We're at Tebrikunna, in far north-eastern Tasmania.
It's the homelands of the Trawlwoolway people. My people. And part of it is a national park
today, Mount William National Park. My ancestors have lived in this region for tens of thousands
of years.
There's stories of them telling the colonists they remembered when they could walk across.
So that's the last ice age. And so every time I walk around, I think about the, all of those
peoples and they're still here.
My ancestors that were last here were removed and exiled in the 1830s to Bass Strait islands.
Making art is a way to directly connect, to try and understand what happened in the past
here. So it's a kind of conversation between me and the stories and the objects that remain,
and the people to try to bring the events to life again.
To give myself and any viewers of the artworks that chance to think differently than if they're
looking at a archival record, or being at a place where they're not aware of particular
stories and events.
So it's really ongoing process of walking country, with sometimes a bit of knowledge.
And other times it's telling me something that I didn't know before. So it's a way to
continue culture, at the same time art becomes one of the outcomes.
One of my ancestors is Dalrymple Briggs. She originally married a convict called Thomas
Johnson. She was born at this way off the north-east of Tasmania. Was probably born
on what's known as Little Kangaroo Island and moved around between the other islands
as a child, and then became a servant on Norfolk Plains. Somehow she's taken from her family
and lives with this colonial physician and his wife. She's one of almost 200 Aboriginal
children that lived with colonists up to 1850. I've kind of stopped at that day and thought,
I really want to work out what the hell happened. And that's really genocidal intent to remove
children from their families.
We are heading to what's now a paddock with sheep and crops. And it's the place where
Dalrymple Briggs lived when she was a young girl.
Dalrymple Briggs was one of those children, that were taken, and they became servants to
some of these landholders in the region. Right where we are today she left and narrowly escaped
death at one time.
So it was coming on dusk and Dalrymple ran from the hut that was here, crying murder,
and two brothers called Brumby, they came past. She was running for help. They intercepted
her and heard her story. They heard Mountgarrett say he could do what he liked with his black
servant. And they went and reported the incident in Launceston. Three days after Dalrymple
went and said, "Oh, my master shot me, mistaking me for a possum".
So that case was dismissed. And she continued to live with him until he and his wife died.
We're heading west to Latrobe on the Parenaple, which is one of the Aboriginal names for the
Mersey River. We're going to meet my brother Dave, at the last place where our ancestor
Dalrymple lived.
Hey brother. So good to see you.
This is the house where Dalrymple and her husband lived in their later years. And it
was moved in the 90s here from about 3kms downriver, where we were earlier where there's
now a memorial.
Where the house was is where Dalrymple and her husband Thomas are buried. And the bank
of the river has been washed away in that area. And now we have a memorial saying that
they're buried there. But there's also these kind of romantic stories about the floods
washed the bank away and washed Dalrymple out to sea. So it's kind of fitting that she's
taken back out to where, she's born, back out to Bass Strait.
Because of what happened here in Tasmania, between our people and the colonists who particularly
try to eradicate us. So much was taken away, our people from here, the land lost
us, we lost our Country. And in all that separation from each other, stories and connections were
really broken, damaged.
So for me art is a way to try to bring things back together. And sometimes magic happens
and I think it's what the sort of thing we can achieve to make culture strong again,
is think and be creative together.