Screened in the roller door of the River Canoe Club on March 30th, the film ‘Aunty Rhonda’s Walk’ by Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor will loop overnight with ‘20 Kilometres of Water’ by Clare Britton.
This screening is the first time these films will be shown with the river. Pop by for a visit, bring your dinner or sit on the banks on your way home from a party and remember walking with us or along the river yourself.
There will be copies of The River Ends as the Ocean: Walk the Tide Out, a small book by Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Clare Britton and Astrida Neimanis to read (published for the Wurridjal Festival by Magnetic Press).
At sunset (7pm) Aunty Rhonda will give a Welcome to Country. The films will play on an alternating loop from dusk on the 30th of March until dawn on the 31st.
Aunty Rhonda’s walk (15mins)
A film by Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor
Paul Costello ASC. Director of photography/sound/edit.
Aunty Rhonda’s Walk follows Activist, Artist, Researcher, and Elder Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, who led a durational public walk on January 17, 2021, along the river, Gooliyari. The walk was a collaboration between Aunty Rhonda, Feminist and Cultural Theorist, Educator, and Writer Astrida Neimanis (author of Bodies of Water), and visual artist Clare Britton. The walk moved through Wangal, Gadigal and Bidjigal Country and was part of the 13th Shanghai Biennale “Bodies of Water” Phase 2: An eco-system of alliances presented at the Powerstation of Art in Shanghai in 2021.
20 Kilometres of Water (15mins)
A film by Clare Britton
Filmed from 2014 to 2019, 20 kilometres of water follows the river underwater from Strathfield Golf Club to Botany Bay/Kamay. Filmed walking where the river is shallow and rowing from Canterbury Ice Rink to the bay. 20 kilometres of water is a meditation on water, gravity and light, time and the trouble and beauty of this particular river.
“The river ends as the ocean: Walk the tide out” was supported by the New South Wales Government through Create NSW.
Magnetic Press has published this edition of the small book “The River Ends as the Ocean: Walk the Tide Out”.
THANKS:
The Composting Feminisms Reading Group, Sydney Environment Institute, Frontyard Projects, The Mullets, The Tempe River Canoe Club, the Wurridjal Festival, Jason L’ecuyer, The Intermedial Composition Network and the Esme Timbrey Creative Practice Lab at the UNSW, Alisa Croft at Pinch Press, Steven Graham at the UNSW print centre, Lucy Parakhina, Julie Rrap, Sydney College of the Arts, Krusa Neimligers, Kim Ligers, James Brown, Liz Warning, Paul Costello, Jazlyn Morgan, Julie Vulcan, Andres Jaque, Filipa Ramos, Yang Yang, Les and Matt Prest, Amber Slade, Therese Keogh, Kenzee Patterson, Tessa Zettel, Jennifer Mae Hamilton and everyone who walked the tide out.
Bios
Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor is a Gadigal, Bidjigal and Yuin elder who works in healing ceremony. Aunty Rhonda is a much loved and respected member of her communities who works tirelessly for human rights, social justice, healing mother earth and sea and redressing inequities of power and wealth across society. She is a disability advocate and a leading force in the Climate Justice Rallies. Among so many other things. Aunty Rhonda is a daughter, mother, grandmother, mentor, elder and friend to many. She has a Masters from UTS in Decolonising Methodologies and how to respectfully engage with traditional custodians. Aunty Rhonda is the Cultural Elder within the Life Rites team. She has worked in healing ceremony with many Life Rites families as well at The Dusk Ceremonies
Living on Bidjigal Land in Sydney, Australia, Clare Britton is an artist interested in how artworks, people and landscapes hold stories. Informed by her work in live performance, Clare’s visual art practice includes installation, site-specific art and writing. Clare’s work has attracted awards for sculpture, performance, design and research and toured in Australia and Internationally. Clare’s work is animated by research and interdisciplinary collaboration. Clare collaborates on Magnetic Topographies and Magnetic Press and is a founding member of the Mullets. Her time as part of the performance collective My Darling Patricia (2004-14) informs her process. Clare’s PhD, A Week on the Cooks River, was completed at Sydney College of the Arts under the supervision of Julie Rrap, Ann Elias and Mikala Dwyer. Clare is a lecturer and researcher in the School of the Arts and Media, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW.
Publication includes writing by:
Astrida Neimanis is a cultural theorist working at the intersection of feminism and environmental change. Her research focuses on bodies, water, and weather, and how they can help us reimagine justice, care, responsibility and relation in the time of climate catastrophe. Her most recent book, Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology is a call for humans to examine our relationships to oceans, watersheds, and other aquatic life forms from the perspective of our own primarily watery bodies, and our ecological, poetic, and political connections to other bodies of water. Additional research interests include theories and practice of interdisciplinarity, feminist epistemologies, intersectionality, multispecies justice, and everyday militarists. Astrida’s research practice includes collaborations with artists, writers, scientists, makers, educational institutions, and communities, often in the form of experimental public pedagogies. Her writing can be found in numerous academic journals and edited collections, artistic exhibitions and catalogues, and online media. Astrida joins UBCO after six years in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney on Gadigal Land, in Sydney, Australia.
A River Ends as the Ocean: Walk the Tide Out published on the occasion of the Wurridjal Festival by Magnetic Press.
Magnetic Press is the newly established imprint of the Magnetic Topographies collaboration between artists Therese Keogh, Clare Britton and Kenzee Patterson.
