Matha

Ceremonial Installation for TarraWarra Biennial 2025: We are Eagles and Large-Scale Film Projection for RISING Festival

Matha is an innovative and deeply layered work that explores cultural practice, ceremony, and Aboriginal ways of being through both material and conceptual forms. While the title refers to a canoe in Yorta Yorta language, the work itself moves beyond a physical object. It becomes a vessel of memory, language, and cultural continuity—anchored in Yorta Yorta Woka (Country) and embodied through my own journey and connections.

This work extends knowledge by reimagining traditional forms within contemporary contexts. The inverted scar embedded in river sand at TarraWarra Art Museum represents more than canoe-making—it reflects Indigenous time, where past, present, and future exist together. The installation merges ancestral practice with conceptual storytelling, offering a sophisticated synthesis of embodied knowledge, archival research, and place-based methodologies.

The presentation at Hamer Hall further pushes the boundaries of form by transforming Matha into a large-scale projection and song. Performed in Yorta Yorta language and created in collaboration with my family and community, including filmmaker Tony Briggs and sound artist James Howard, the work celebrates Aboriginal women's voices and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge.

This approach is both conceptually and culturally complex. It weaves language revitalisation, song, film, performance, and installation into a single body of work that activates cultural memory and Indigenous presence in public space. The work is significant for how it centres Aboriginal knowledge systems, not just as subjects of inquiry but as active, living practices that shape contemporary art and cultural discourse.

Artist/Director: Moorina Bonini (Yorta Yorta, Wurundjeri, Wiradjuri)

Film cultural collaborator: Uncle Leon Atkinson (Yorta Yorta)

Curator: Kimberley Moulton

Singers: Aunty Laurel Robinson, Aunty Beverley Briggs, Aunty Glennys Briggs, Julie Andrews, Stephanie Briggs and Moorina Bonini  

Sound Artist: James Howard (Jaawda)

Film Production: Typecase Entertainment 

Shadow Director: Tony Briggs

Producer: Damienne Pradier 

Director of Photography: Scott Mulgrew 

Camera: Chris Phillips

Camera: Chris Warrior