MB: Black Wattle Volume II is a collection of thoughts and reflections of what it means to be connected within a blak collective while also being connected to Country and community. Our threads of connectedness are made evident through making and yarning amongst ourselves, and across our individual works. Each of us holds a thread that connects us back to our own ancestral lands, to our own histories, our own knowledges and families. The digital space becomes an inter- face between ourselves; a space where we can speak to and from. The molwa (shadow) has always been an interest to me. An extension of self onto Country – a presentation of self. This showcases the relationship between our bawu (body), mulana (spirit) and woka (country) – each is entwined and connected. They do not work in separation from each other instead, bawu, mulana, and woka work together to form ourselves.

JRW: Spying on them in the kitchen, listening to them talk. I thought I was the one sneaking and listening until Maya found me by the eel trap. We couldn’t decide if we would go back the easy way or the hard way until we realised we didn’t know the difference. It’s funny as I think about being watched and also onlooking, I wasn’t a part of original volume of Black Wattle but I was around… hearing about it, talking about it. I feel like the way we work allows me to swim through…. Black Wattle Volume II is just about us, and in a way it allows us to talk and be together. I made a horror style shaky short film, Maya was the protagonist. It’s vaguely about a water spirit that watches from the outside, until a certain time at night when the veil between the outside and inside is porous. The more patience, the less we plan and just be. I feel most inspired, it is strange also thinking that others outside of this mob will read, watch and listen to Black Wattle Volume II as it feels private, I think that having it online puts me at ease. Not that any of the content is made for our eyes only, just that it seems very personal.

KTB: I wasn’t with you all for the fire yarns, and I was trying to look for home in the places I was travelling through while overseas, that were so different (and sometimes familiar) to home. I collected photos of all the red, black and yellow combinations in the changing landscapes. While I was home, I made a work on Country while camping with my family – exposing materials from Country to the sun and washing them in cold Taungurung waters. The works were made while thinking about the ways we connect over space and time, whether we are on Country or very far away. Black Wattle is always a time capsule or document of where we are, at the time we’re making – sometimes unresolved, and sometimes just an experiment. I invited Alice to make a cryptic crossword just for mob. She made me one for a Kris Kringle gift on Christmas and it was the most special present, it’s nice to have something just for us, that you know is handmade, and thought about to make you smile and feel special. Lots of homely vibes.

JL: For me, Black Wattle Volume II was a chance to make just for me/us, which I think is why my work is so much more personal than usual. There is so much support within the collective to simply make the works we wanted, it’s amazing to have a platform where they can be shared together. My work is really reflective and about moments of connection with people around food and drink. While I was too sick to be away together for our residency, viewing everyone’s works really helped me think about what matters to me about being a part of a collective/ family. My series Cures for distance shows three digital scans of food/drink that comfort me when I am missing people.

MH: Creating this second iteration of Black Wattle has been full of restful moments. Sitting together with Moorina and Jenna Rain up on Wurundjeri Country in front of the fire until the early hours felt like I could breathe deeply again. Being in the city for such a prolonged period of time impacts my ability to create and think up new ideas. Slowing down and cooking everyone a chicken curry from a recipe my mum emailed me made my heart full. This time away allowed me to reflect on my childhood and how coming together to share a meal is more than the nourishment from the food, its nourishment from the people you share it with too.

Are you a morning or a night person? KTB: Morning! I’m always hassling these mob with messages first thing in the morning.

Is there a sound or song that prompts a where or when for you? JRW: crows always remind me of the highway and hot days with not much to do.

Is there something you’ve always collected? JL: I collect (hoard) so many things — feathers, books, trinkets — always with the justification that one day I might need them for art.

Where do you feel the most connected / Where do you feel the most disconnected? MB: The studio. this mob: Yeah!

What scares you the most right now / what inspires you? MH: All of the above, the morning texts from Kate.

Through making your new commission for Between Waves, what has been made clear and/or become more obscured? this mob: We realised we want to do more residencies — we loved the process of being together — and that is the work.

this mob is a blak arts collective based on Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/ Melbourne with members’ ancestral connections in Victoria and across the country. Through their collaborative and relational process, this mob centre and prioritise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to create spaces to come together and unite emerging blak artists. By centring blakness, this mob carve out space for new ways for blak creative and cultural practice to exist and thrive in the art world that does not cater to whiteness.

As a collective, this mob come together on a regular basis at their artist studio in Collingwood Yards to take advantage of the rareness of having physical space to occupy. When together in the studio, their time is devoted to creating new artworks, sharing their individual practices and current projects with one another, and connecting with invited guests. Their shared studio provides the time and space for listening and yarning, and for rest; to be together without external pressure to produce or present.

this mob regularly facilitate community-centred knowledge sharing and skills-based workshops in life drawing, emu feather adornment making, collage, makeup, printmaking and more. Recent collective exhibitions include Collective Movements, Monash University of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2022; Because of Her, We Can: HEAL, Schoolhouse Studios, Melbourne, 2018; and Yelmo Garang, Footscray Community Arts Centre, Melbourne, 2017.

this mob members include:

Moorina Bonini

born 1996, Wurundjeri Country
lives and works on Wurundjeri Country, Victoria

Moorina Bonini is a proud descendant of the Yorta Yorta Dhulunyagen family clan of Ulupna and the Yorta Yorta, Wurundjeri and Wiradjuri Briggs/McCrae family. Her creative and cultural practice disrupts and critiques the Eurocentric foundations that centralise Indigenous categorisation within western institutions.

Kate ten Buuren

born 1994, Wurundjeri Country
lives and works on Kulin Country, Victoria

Kate ten Buuren is a Taungurung curator, artist and writer working on Kulin Country. Ten Buuren’s cross-disciplinary practice investigates collective and collaborative ways of working, with her interest in contemporary visual art, film and oral traditions is grounded in self-determination and self-representation.

Maya Hodge

born 1998, Wurundjeri Country
lives and works on Wurundjeri Country, Victoria

Maya Hodge is a proud Lardil and Yangkaal emerging writer and curator. Her multidisciplinary practice explores the power of disrupting colonial narratives through writing, curatorial and musical project-based work dedicated to uplifting First Nations autonomy and storytelling.

Jenna Rain Warwick

born 1997, Kuku Yalanji Country
lives and works on Wurundjeri Country, Victoria

Jenna Rain Warwick is an artist, curator and published writer born in Mossman, Queensland. A proud Luritja Woman, her practice centres her love for film and television. She has curated film programs and screenings, and has a desire to reinvigorate film criticism in so called ‘Australia’.

Jenna Lee

born 1992, Ngunnawal Country
lives and works on Wurundjeri Country, Victoria

Jenna Lee is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater woman with mixed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. Using art to explore and celebrate her many overlapping identities, Lee works across sculpture, installation, and body adornment.