Lea Durie

Whitlam and the Brindabellas is an exploration of a new place through the deep time materiality of wild clay. This work started with a question. What might be found when a planned urban place is encountered through unplanned wanderings and messy bodily entanglements?  I approach the new and ordered suburb of Whitlam, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country, through its human domestic architecture and the non-human world of its 350 million year old clay. The repetitive and intensive process of working with wild clay forces me to slow down and take notice. This exchange between place, labour and material results in a sensory engagement with the place. Through its weight, colour, texture, smell the wild clay shows a vibrancy in the matter of Whitlam and presents new perspectives of place.