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Shifting Perspectives - The Self Reconciliation Project exhibition, Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery.

Shifting Perspectives - The Self Reconciliation Project

Shifting Perspectives - The Self Reconciliation Project exhibition draws on my

practice-led research during residencies at the Fremantle Arts Centre in Western Australia and Central Craft in Mparntwe /Alice Springs, and my collaboration with the composer and sound artist, MJ, from Those Who Ride With Giants.

As one of the first settler families to arrive in Western Australia’s wheatbelt in 1907, our family were granted land lots while the First Nations people of the area were driven out. The Self Reconciliation Project is an examination of my past, revealing the illusory nature of my learned history.

As a descendant of settlers, I explore my journey towards truth-telling and truth-sharing. It is about the notion of self reconciliation— confronting truths and acknowledging the past. It is about listening, hearing, and understanding the impact of settlement on the First Nations people.

Ceramics, soundscapes, and mixed media are used to convey a narrative of shifting perspectives.

Images 1 to 9

Title: Elements of Place Series

Year: 2025-2026

Materials: Porcelain, found clay

Photography: Visuall Photography

The residency at Central Craft was aimed at immersing myself in the landscape, with the expectation that I would gain a deeper understanding of the profound spiritual connection between place and people. I spent many hours walking through the traditional lands of the Anangu, Luritja, Arrernte, Western Arrernte and Pitjantjatjara peoples. This series of ceramics, as well as the soundtrack ‘Immersion’, were inspired by my time spent walking through these ancient, spiritual lands.

Image 10

Photography: Natasha Harsh

Image 11

Title: Taken

Year: 2025-2026

Materials: Porcelain, found clay, copper wire, silver wire, lustre

Photography: Natasha Harsh

This installation consists of 390 bowls. Each bowl acknowledges one of the 390 nations and regions listed on the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Map of Indigenous Australia. Each bowl has been hand-decorated or painted using clay gathered from the landscape. In this work, the bowl serves as a metaphor through which I reflect on how we have taken the land’s wealth to fill our own bowls, while recognising the 390 nations and regions from which that land was taken.

Image 12

Title: Shifting perspectives – Timeline

Year: 2025-2026

Materials: Mixed media

Courtesy of the artist and 2B Design

I undertook a five-month residency at the Fremantle Art Centre to research the parallel histories of my family and First Nations people of the Noongar Ballardong people – the traditional owners of the lands on which my family had settled. The timeline tells the story of both my family’s migration from Scotland to Quairading in Western Australia and some of the Western Australia and Commonwealth laws and acts passed that subjugated Aboriginal people and communities during the same period.

Image 13

Title: Map of Australia

Materials: Mixed media

Design: Courtesy of the artist and 2B Design

This map shows the route that I travelled during the project, covering Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The place names correspond to the regions and nations listed on the AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia. I have listed these alphabetical order, highlighting the names of the regions and nations I travelled through.

Images 14 and15

Title: Wall of grief and loss

Year: 2025

Materials: Mixed media

The Self Reconciliation Project took me on a deeply personal and emotional journey and aligned with a time of intense loss and grief in my life. During the process of creating this work I reflected on the importance of being with family at the end of their lives, and contemplated how, as settlers, we have devastated families, Country, and culture of First Nations peoples.

Images 16 and 17

Collaboration

Avi Amesbury and MJ, from Those Who Ride With Giants

The project led me to experiment with storytelling techniques across different media. In response to my research during a residency at the Fremantle Arts Centre, I turned to writing. It was a means of expressing the feelings I experienced and the memories that surfaced. I continued this practice throughout the project, keeping a diary of poems, writings, and words. While travelling across Australia, I also recorded sounds from the landscape, such as birdsong, other wildlife, rain, wind, and the sea. Together we created nine tracks that blended MJ’s compositions and instrumental soundscapes with my poems, spoken word, landscape recordings, and sounds produced from my ceramic works.

Acknowledgements

Selina Hill from the Wakka Wakka tribe (Gayndah and surrounding area, Burnett River), who at the time of developing the exhibition was the Cultural Officer at the Bunderberg Regional Council. My meetings with Selina were instrumental in clarifying the exhibition as ‘a cultural courtesy and as a way of truth-telling and truth-sharing.’

Rebecca McDuff, Director of the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery for her courageous support of the project and for presenting the exhibition at the gallery.

Tim Bohm, from 2B Design for his in-kind support in designing the exhibition works, ‘Shifting Perspectives – Timeline’ and ‘Map of Australia’.

MJ, from Those Who Ride With Giants, for his collaboration and in-kind support in composing, recording and producing the soundtrack.

Ivana Gerard for her generous support in documenting the recording process.

The Regional Art Development Fund, Bundaberg Regional Council, for their support enabling me to work with the composer and sound artist, MJ from Those Who Ride With Giants, in developing the soundtrack.

Flying Arts and the Regional Art Fund for their support in recording the soundtrack.