Genevieve Murray

The commons and the travelling stock reserves contain practical, environmental and cultural resources that are depended upon today as they have been for millennia. A long-term research project, The Long Paddock looks at the intricate relationship we already have to the histories present in them and seeks to offer a way of unlocking these places through wayfinding devices, story telling, and mapping. This project steps outside the yard and invites people to participate in the landscape, not as consumer but custodian.

Future Acts examines the spatial politics of the travelling stock reserves (TSRs). They contain practical, environmental and cultural resources that are depended upon today as they have been for millennia. We are only now beginning to understand the origins of the TSRs and their relationship to Indigenous trade routes, aboriginal sites of occupation and their significance to biodiversity. We invite you to listen firsthand to the spatial-politics of this land from a local Indigenous perspective with Wiradjuri elders Kevin Williams and Lyn Syme over a campfire damper breakfast. Kevin will give us a tour of TSR55 showing us how to read the landscape for evidence of aboriginal occupation. Lyn will talk about negotiating Native Title and the spatial-politics of land. Lawyer Maeve Parker will introduce us to Native Title, Aboriginal Land Rights, Future Acts and how they play out in this context. This work is part of an ongoing research project commissioned by the New Landscapes Institute, and culminating in an exhibition at Wagga Wagga Gallery opening 5 May 2017.