Murrudha: Sovereign Walks

 Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks | Dr Matilda House, Brenda L. Croft, William James Mildenhall, Prue Hazelgrove, Dean Freeman, Cheryl Davison, Shane Herrington

ANU School of Art & Design Gallery | 7 July - 7 August 2026

In her capacity as team leader for the Australian National University (ANU) Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Grand Challenge, Professor Brenda L. Croft drew inspiration from her ancestors' sovereign acts. 

Protesting genocidal conditions imposed on them over eight decades of colonial and unsettler-colonial impact, more than 200 Gurindji (and related nations and clans) stockmen and their families marched off the 2nd Wave Hill Station in outback Australia in 1966. Together with an earlier sovereign action in 1963 by Yolngu people, their 22-kilometer Walk-Off Track garnered national and international coverage and support over nearly nine years of activism. It became seen as the origins of the national land rights movement.

In 1927, senior Wiradjuri walamira (clevermen) Nangar/Yangar (c.1848-1927) also known as Jimmy Clements), and Ooloogan (c. 1840-1928) also known as George John Noble and Marvellous together completed a 3 days, 93 miles (150 kilometres) walk. It was undertaken in order to demonstrate their sovereignty by being present for the official opening of the new federal Parliament House on 9 and 10 May on Ngambri/Ngunawal homelands in the, then, recently established national capital, Canberra. Contemporary press clippings acknowledge their participation as defending their sovereign rights to their traditional Country.

They walked from the Brungle Station (also known as Brungle Community), nestled between Gundagai and Tumut on Walgalu/Wiradyuri Country, across the Brindabella Range to Canberra. It has been (and is) the driving force for the Challenge project

Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #14 is the fourteenth outcome associated with the Challenge project "Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – tracking cultural actions through art, Country, language and music".

The Murrudha team and First Nations community members have undertaken two test walks determining Nangar and Ooloogan’s route, with a final test walk undertaken for the 99th anniversary in May 2026.

This exhibition showcases creative-led research in progress since 2020, including audio-visual documentation, alongside creative art and craftworks by a number of First Nations, and some non-Indigenous, artists associated with the project. The room sheet available at the exhibition provides background information regarding the various significant people integral to the project.

At the exhibition’s official opening guests heard a great presentation by Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM singing up Country and were treated to a wonderful performance by the Djinama Yalaga choir. And exhibition curator, Professor Croft, spoke passionately about the project. I mention that because all of those things added wonderfully to the visual art on display.

Dr Aunty Matilda House OAM © Brian Rope

Djinama Yalaga choir © Brian Rope

Professor Brenda L. Croft © Brian Rope

There are 35 diverse works in the exhibition including three audiovisuals to spend time with, two artworks by Dr Matilda House on loan from the Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection, and three photographs. Two of the latter show indigenous people on the steps of Parliament House – one on 10 May 1927, the other on 23 November 2023. The third is of George John Noble aka Marvellous with a dog, pre-1926. These photos are by William James Mildenhall and Prue Hazelgrove.

Aunty Matilda House was born in 1945 and is a proud Ngambri-Ngunnawal woman who has determinedly pursued social justice for Indigenous people in the wider community. She is well known and respected, indeed loved, by the general community of Canberra, all of whom have been at various events when Aunty has welcomed them to Country. It is good to have her artwork included here.

Many Canberrans know about the Mildenhall collection which comprises more than 7,700 images on glass plate negatives and has significant cultural and historical value to all Australians. Hazelgrove specialises in the wet plate collodion process. The inkjet print from her original tintype nicely complements the Mildenhall works.

Still image from: Brungle to Canberra – Final Test Walk 4-8 May 2026 (Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track # 14), projection. Participants: Brungle First Nations community members, Bugang Bila Indigenous Rangers (Tumut, Brungle, Snowy Mountains area), Professor Brenda L Croft, Monika Duggan, Terry Cleary, Rohit Rao (ANU). Drone operator/A-V documenter: Colin Elphick, Numeral Creative. 

Dr Matilda House (Williams), Murumbeeja dooligah, 1996, Edition 1 /6. Printer Jan Hogan and Theo Trembly Studio One Inc Canberra. Canberra Museum and Gallery Collection.

Jimmy Clements (also known as Nangar, Yangar or ‘King Billy’) on the front steps of Parliament House, c. 10 May 1927. Photograph by William James Mildenhall. Inkjet print on archival paper. National Archives of Australia.

Prue Hazelgrove, Nangar and Ooloogan Descendants on steps of Old Parliament House, 23 November 2023, as part of Murrudha: Sovereign Walks – Track #4, 24 November 2023. Inkjet print on archival paper, (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

There is a superb acrylic gouache on rag board by Cheryl Davison, some beautiful wood coolamons by Dean Freeman, and an impressive bark canoe and wooden spears by Shane Herrington. And, last but not least, numerous high quality inkjet prints (from original tintypes) by Brenda L. Croft. Davison’s artwork is inspired by the river that flows from the mountains to the sea (a phrase Canberrans know well) through the Country of her grandfather. Making cultural objects allows Freeman to connect with what his Ancestors used in their daily lives. Herrington’s approach also fosters a deep connection to cultural heritage. Croft’s artworks here are some of her First Nations portraits created since 2019.

Cheryl Davison, Still on Country, 2026, acrylic gouache on rag board, 70 x 57 cm.

 

Dean Freeman, gulaman (coolamons) (installation), 2023-26, wood, dimensions variable

Installation image © Brian Rope

Shane Herrington, Murlin (bark canoe) 2026. Bark, bush string, dimensions variable

And Spears, 2026. Wood, bush string, dimensions variable

Installation image © Brian Rope

Brenda L. Croft, Julie (Dhulanyagan clan, Yorta Yorta/Wiradjuri/Wurundjeri Peoples), 2024 from the series Naabámi (thou shall/will see): Barangaroo (army of me). 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

Brenda L. Croft, Men of High Degree: Jim Everett – puralia meenamatta (clan plangermairreenner, Ben Lomond people, Cape Portland nation, north-east Tasmania), 2023. 42 x 27.9cm, inkjet print (from original tintype, wet plate collodion process) on archival paper.

 

There it is - art, Country, language and music. All feature in this excellent and important exhibition - and in planned associated events. Please see it in person if you are able to.

This review is also available on the author's blog.

‘hand/made/held/ground’ & Made in Australia Series II

Photography & Mixed Media Review | Brian Rope

‘hand/made/held/ground’ & Made in Australia Series II | Brenda L. Croft

Canberra Museum & Gallery | Until 22 January 2022

‘hand/made/held/ground’ is a major body of work by a leading contemporary artist, Brenda L. Croft, a proud Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra woman whose background also includes Australian, Chinese, English, German and Irish heritage.

This mixed media installation explores Croft’s intimate patrilineal relationship, and her return to her father’s, and her own, Country; sharing something of that lineage connection and her journey. It reimagines and honours customary objects - jimpila (spearhead) and kurrwa (stone axe) - created on their Gurindji homelands in the Northern Territory. Contemporary representations on display reflect ancestral journeys - undertaken on traditional homelands, and returning home.

When, and who by, the stone axe was created is unknown. However, it is known that the axe survived over 130 years of pastoral impact prior to being found by Croft when she visited the remote site where it was.

The spear tip was given to Croft under temporary care by a supporter (Lyn Riddett) of the Wave Hill walk-off led by Vincent Lingiari. Riddett received the spear as a gift from an Elder at Daguragu in 1971. In the following years, the tip of the spear was accidentally broken before it was able to be repatriated to the Gurindji community, via Croft.

Whilst caretaker of the spear, Croft repaired it with wax and had a wax mould made of it, along with a mould of the stone axe. With permission from family and community members, she used those moulds to create multiple copies of these significant cultural objects - black and red lead crystal, clear and uranium glass cast stone axes and spear tips.

It is these copies, displayed on a combination of new and aged steel bases echoing steel bore water tanks, that we see in this exhibition. Each is lit individually from within revealing various colours, their configuration representing constellations in a night sky.

Jimpila (spearheads) (detail) from hand-made/held-ground installation at Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 19 November – 14 December 2019.

Photographer © James Henry. Image courtesy Brenda L Croft and Niagara Galleries.

Jimpila (spearhead – uranium glass) 2017 - 21. Glass components: kiln cast uranium glass. Display case: stainless steel, Sikaflex, electrical wire, 12 volt globe. Dimensions: variable. Photographer © James Henry. Image courtesy Brenda L Croft and Niagara Galleries.

As well as the kurrwa and jimpila pieces, large satellite images displayed on the gallery walls map journeys embarked on by Croft, sometimes alone and other times accompanied by family and Gurindji community members. These maps, together with the axe and spear tip copies, reveal a connection between land and sky. As the lights in the moulds pulse on and off, their beating synchronises with ancient footsteps on the earth and symbolises the beating hearts of the objects’ owners.

Yijarni (Gurindji History Book Project) (detail) and Jimpila (spearheads) (detail) from hand-made/held-ground installation at Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 19 November – 14 December 2019. Photographer © James Henry. Image courtesy Brenda L Croft and Niagara Galleries.

In an adjacent space to that displaying ‘hand/made/held/ground’, Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG) is showing eight works from Croft’s earlier ‘Made in Australia II’ series, held in its own collection. This is an interesting and clever juxtapositioning of two sets of artworks.

Made in Australia II was produced by Croft to honour her mother, who advocated for social equity at a local level, while also ensuring her children were proud of their heritage. A non-Indigenous woman, Dorothy Jean Croft broke from tradition in Sydney - she found love with a Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra man, Joseph Croft. They married and raised a family together, living in numerous regions of Australia, including Canberra.

The artist Croft has celebrated her mother’s story by scaling up her (mother’s) original 1950s-60s vividly coloured 35mm Cibachrome slides to giant size photographic prints that speak to the strength and potency of her parent’s relationship - played out quietly in this heart of the nation.

CROFT 21. Civic Centre Canberra 1959 - Made in Australia II Series

CROFT 24. Joe - Car, Canberra - Made in Australia II Series

CROFT 44. Joe & Snow 3 Mile Lake - first snowfall ANZAC - 1960 - Made in Australia II Series

Together, these two bodies of Croft’s work celebrate both the male and female lines of her kinship stories, whilst also shedding light on some of our nation’s tensions: a story of lives impacted by stolen generations, returning to traditional homelands, the assertion of women’s independence and the breaking of class and racial barriers.

Both series wonderfully pay tribute to her mother’s memory.

This review was published in The Canberra Times of 20/12/21 here. It is also on the author's own blog here.