Craft Victoria in collaboration with Mildura Arts Centre presents Reimagining Culture – Contemporary Connections to Country. The exhibition includes a selection of existing and new works by Mutti Mutti, Boonwurrung, Yorta Yorta woman and multi-disciplinary artist Maree Clarke. Many of the works were made in collaboration with Maree’s nieces and nephews who live in Mildura and the surrounding area.
In Reimagining Culture, Maree and her family (re)imagine their culture in the place they live and have always lived. The exhibition explores family traditions and been recreated through research, while respecting the land and drawing strength from Ancestors.
Image: Maree Clarke, Kangaroo Tooth Necklace (detail), 2013. Kangaroo teeth, kangaroo leather, kangaroo sinew and pigment. Monash University Collection. Purchased by the Monash University Library 2016.
Maree Clarke is a Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung woman who grew up in northwest Victoria, mainly in Mildura, on the banks of the Murray River. Maree has been a practicing artist living and working in Melbourne for the last three decades.
Maree Clarke is a pivotal figure in the reclamation of southeast Australian Aboriginal art practices, reviving elements of Aboriginal culture that were lost—or laying dormant—over the period of colonisation, as well as a leader in nurturing and promoting the diversity of contemporary southeast Aboriginal artists.