Connections to Ngayirr Ngurambang (Sacred Country) and art undermining settler colonial power

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Abstract
Sensing and knowing Country in deeply colonised southeastern Australia is affected by persistent undermining, in both physical and metaphorical forms, by individuals, organisations and structures. Physical undermining occurs when extractive regimes, such as mining, damage Country while metaphorical undermining can play out when Indigenous knowledges are not centred when engaging with Country. Ngayirr Ngurambang: Sacred Country near Mudgee, Wiradjuri Country, an art exhibition led by Wiradjuri curator Aleshia Lonsdale, aimed to invite people to experience, engage with and awaken to these challenges. The exhibition brought together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from regional places, to reflect on, and build, sensibilities and knowledges of one part of this Country: The Drip, Goulburn River National Park. The physical undermining of this treasured women's water place comes from encroaching coal mines in the region while a form of metaphorical undermining arises in persistent settler colonial structures and processes. By drawing together insights from the curator, artists and participants of the exhibition, through interviews and qualitative surveys, this paper argues that artmaking and receiving can push against colonial hegemonic structures and enable different sensing and relational onto-epistemologies that are based in respect.

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