Hero(es) by Aaron Claringbold and Rebecca McCauley
22 May - 5 June 2020
1. hoy!
what would churn interest?
to simply not re-enact?
to recede into something other
than an eco skirmish,
just like this…
what numbers please,
To have the confidence to
name this instead
with M:
mass-acres of fresh lively grass
laid flat
by trailers’ grilled feet
mud-busted vein
slog wood matters
ornate history society stuff
deadwood doors
done nothin
but chronicle trouble.
mechanics of:
how they got started
now erosion is an overused
word
how about we try harder
look to beauty in shit like
eutrophos
until that’s no matter too
understanding that
orders of well-nourished
charts
gone breathe
shouldn’t have taken that many fish
that
mud boats slide thick matter
from one historical spot to another
“paths past-travelled”
thick-arms
photos
cheers
& it did nothing
mud down the gullet
litres got a logo
who would want
to re-enact today
2.
this is a domestic space
this old river
there is intimacy here
long and loving laughter
warm entries
you would like to imagine this,
wouldn’t you?
frog shudders a plonk
across alluvial perfection
amphitheatre sounds
on a silent night
we come
refigure ears here
the river is not obscure
and will not become abstract
sad u won’t know until..
until?
it withdraws its care
it turns away
and we.. go
40 nations or basically a UN
in agreement: stop sign
in multiple languages
mother will not forget
river’s recent obscurity
and that one third production
from blind mouths
that fed.
Written by Neika Lehman
Neika Lehman is a writer and artist, living and working in Narrm since 2014. They grew up in nipaluna/Hobart and belong to the Trawlwoolway peoples of north east Tasmania.
Author's note: “Paths past-travelled” is a reference to Natalie Harkin’s 2014 essay ‘The Poetics of (Re)Mapping Archives: Memory in the Blood’.
Video taken though an unsecured cctv camera overlooking public space on the Murray River in Echuca Moama. Recorded over the long weekend of 26 January. Underwater recordings of marine vessels supplied courtesy of the Centre for Marine Science and Technology, Curtin University. The dual towns of Echuca Moama sit on the banks of the Murray and Campaspe River, across both Victoria and New South Wales.
The artists acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the area depicted as the Yorta Yorta people.
The artists acknowledge the shared land and proximity of the Baraba Baraba and the Ngurai illam Wurrung, and that the waters of the river this work is made on have nurtured and sustained tens of thousands of generations of people. Sovereignty was never ceded.