State News - March 2006

Barmah Forest Cloak
Artist: Treahna Hamm

By Robin Usher, Arts Review - The Age
March 13, 2006

The skill of making possum-skin cloaks disappeared from Victoria about 150 years ago, leaving behind only a few specimens in museums around the world.

That all changed seven years ago when three women on a printmaking course were shown the Aboriginal collection at the Melbourne Museum, which has two cloaks from the 19th century.

"It brought me to tears when they brought out the cloak from my family's country around Lake Condah (in western Victoria)," says Vicki Couzens.

"I felt such a strong connection to the past - I could feel the old people. We were all tremendously moved."

That chance viewing changed Couzens' life, as well as that of her two companions, Treahna Hamm and Lee Darroch. They set out to rediscover the skills needed not only to make the cloaks but to put motifs on them similar to those from the past.

"The most important thing is that we are telling our stories in our own way," Couzens says.

The three received a grant from Melbourne City Council for their work and began importing skins from New Zealand, where the foreign possum is regarded as a pest, similar to the rabbit in Australia.

The first two cloaks made by the women are on permanent display in Canberra's National Museum of Australia, where they have represented Victoria for the past three years.

Three more decorated cloaks are now on show at Bunjilaka, the Melbourne Museum's Aboriginal cultural centre. They are part of an exhibition, Biganga, which is the Yorta Yorta term for the cloaks. Another is in the office of Melbourne's Lord Mayor, John So.

The show demonstrates traditional and contemporary practices based on the unique Victorian tradition.

The women are keen to teach others how to make the cloaks. For example, Couzens, who is from the Kirrae Wurrong clan, works with her daughters. Darroch, from the Yorta Yorta clan, is a community arts worker in East Gippsland and Hamm, also from the Yorta Yorta, is an artist in the state's north-east. Couzens says the cloaks are a key ingredient in cultural regeneration.

"We are creating connections for future generations," she says. "They reinforce our identity. It's only when you know who you are that you can gain the strength to go forward."

All three women say cloak-making has improved their sense of being Aborigines, and reinforced the continuing Aboriginal presence in the state.

"I became aware that while we were reviving an art form that had been rested for 150 years, we were, in fact, reinforcing something that has never been in doubt, but may have been taken for granted," Hamm says.

"As we talked about the cloaks, I realised that we were not only connecting with each other, but also with our people from the past who had made cloaks just as we're doing."

Hamm was taken from her mother at birth in 1965 and given up for adoption. She did not meet her again for 27 years.

"I only stopped asking questions when I met my family and began learning about our culture and continuing traditions," she says.

Hamm, whose Possum Skin Cloak Spirit is also on display at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, is doing a PhD in philosophy as RMIT, where Couzens is also undertaking a masters degree.

Darroch, whose grandmother was removed from her family, was brought up being told her dark skin was the result of Pacific Islander ancestry - "anything but Aborigines," she says.

Couzens says that people's skin colour is no indication of their sense of being Aboriginal.

"That might fade over generations," she says, "but that doesn't affect the spirit."

As part of her work in Gippsland, Darroch helps put young people in touch with their families. She says that making the cloaks has improved her knowledge of Aboriginal culture through the discovery of the stories told in symbols on the old cloaks.

"One of the old cloaks had 81 stories on its panels and no one knew them when we started," she says. "But, as we have gone on, the stories have started to come back."

By Jason Dowling
March 12, 2006

THE Environmental Protection Authority has requested more information from the operators of a toxic dump at Tullamarine before it makes a decision on extending the life of the site.

The site's owners, Cleanaway, have applied to expand and upgrade the dump despite evidence that the site has affected nearby water sources.

On Friday the EPA said it had "requested further information from Brambles (which owns Cleanaway) before making a decision" on the application.

Local residents have opposed an extension, under which the site would remain open until at least 2010.

Phil McLaughlin has worked at a development business next to the dump for five years. "You can see gases rising off the dump most days," he said. "There have been some days when my eyes have actually been burning."

A Cleanaway spokesman, Michael Sharp, defended the company's record and application to extend the site. "Cleanaway has operated the site in accordance with licence conditions for over 30 years," he said. "This application has been made in accordance with all the appropriate regulations and to the proper authority, the EPA."

An independent inquiry into the application received 89 written submissions, most opposing the plans. In its report released on Friday, the inquiry noted a lack of information on existing capacity at the site.

The new application would allow the site to receive another 58,510 cubic metres with an estimated closing date of 2010.

The EPA said there was evidence of contamination of groundwater and of Moonee Ponds Creek, but the levels did "not indicate risk to human health through recreational contact with creek water". The EPA is still conducting a study of the ecological effects of the site.

A waste containment facility at Nowingi is proposed to replace the bulk of prescribed waste sent to the Tullamarine site.